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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



Pioneer Sfcrftma ci America, 



Vol. I. The Story of Old Falmouth. 

By JAMES OTIS. 

Vol. II. The Story of Pemaquid. 

By JAMES OTIS. 



THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 
NEW YORK. 



PIONEER TOWNS OF AMERICA 



THE STORY OF 



PEMAQUID 



BY 



JAMES OTIS 

Author of " The Story of Old Falmouth " 



NEW YORK: 

THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 

PUBLISHERS 



THE LIBRARY ©F 

CONGRESS, 
Two Copies Receive© 

FEB. g7 1902 

G©P¥ft»©HT ENTRY 



3jUr. 



COPY B. 



COPYRIGHT, 1902, 

BY T. Y. CROWELL & CO. 



Y* 



V 



Typography by C. J. Peters & Son, 

BOSTON, U.S.A. 



f 



\* 



NOTE. 

In this story, the second in the series of 
"Pioneer Towns of America," Pemaquid Plan- 
tation has been chosen as the central point, 
because, during the early settlement of Maine, 
it was the most important post on the coast 
east of Massachusetts. 

To those brave men who strove to build 
homes in the vicinity of Pemaquid are we es- 
pecially indebted for their bold battling against 
civilized as well as savage foes, their sturdy 
fight against the forces of nature, and their 
indomitable courage, so often and so sorely 
tried. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

The First White Men . . 7 

The Archangel 10 

The Indians 12 

The First Captives 14 

The First Settlement 16 

Captain John Smith 19 

New Settlements 22 

Royal Grants 24 

The First Title 26 

Royal Grants and Patents 29 

Pemaquid Patent 31 

French Claims 32 

The Drowne Claim 35 

A Charter 38 

The Rule of Massachusetts 40 

Why named «« Maine " 42 

The First Murder 44 

William Phips 46 

Grant to the Duke of York 48 

Massachusetts takes Possession 52 

Indian Wars 54 

King Philip's War 55 

The White Man's Treachery 59 

Pemaquid Abandoned 63 

Waldron's Interview 67 

Burying the Dead 71 

The Treaty at Casco 73 

5 



6 CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

First General Assembly . . 76 

Early Laws 79 

Governor Andros Visits Pemaquid 81 

Governor Bradstreet 84 

King William's War ........... 86 

Attack on Pemaquid 89 

Sir William Phips, Governor 93 

Capture of Fort William Henry ...... 98 

Treaty of Ryswick 102 

Queen Anne's War 105 

Common Schools 109 

Arrowsic Incorporated 112 

Governor Shute at Arrowsic . . . . '. . . 114 

Lovewell's War 117 

St. George's Fort Attacked 122 

Dummer's Treaty 126 

David Dunbar's Misrule 129 

Incorporation of Brunswick . . . . . . . 133 

France declares War, March 15, 1744 .... 138 

The Fifth Indian War 140 

A Skirmish at St. George's 143 

Attacking the Forts 145 

Affray at Wiscasset 148 

Incorporation of Newcastle 150 

The Sixth Indian War 154 

A Skirmish at Topsham 157 

Incorporation of Topsham 160 

Incorporation of Waldoborough 164 

Incidents of the Revolution 168 

District of Maine 171 

Independence of the United States 174 

Incorporation of Gardiner 177 

Maine becomes a State 180 



THE 

STORY OF PEMAQUID. 



THE FIRST WHITE MEN. 

The title " Pemaquid," at the head of this 
story of the pioneer towns of Maine, is not used 
to designate a single settlement, but, rather, 
that portion of the province situated east of 
Falmouth and west of the Penobscot River, a 
territory which has been the subject of more 
than one royal grant, each giving rise to several 
distinct claims, and above all of which stood 
deeds given to the settlers by the Indians. 

Sagadahock, or Sheepscot, might as well have 
given name to the story, save for the fact that 
at the settlement then known as Pemaquid 
was built the first fortification ; and, after the 
territory had been laid waste by the forays of 

7 



8 THE STORY OF PEMAQU1D. 

the Indians or the French, it was at Pemaquid 
that the first steps toward repairing the damage 
were taken. 

It is possible that the first English-speaking 
people to visit the coast of Maine were led. by 
Captain Bartholomew Gosnold, who, on board 
the shallop Concord, visited it in 1602; but 
did no more than come to anchor for a few 
hours, after which they returned to Cape Cod, 
where was begun by them a settlement. There 
are many wise men who do not believe Gosnold 
ever saw any portion of what is now known as 
Maine, therefore we must doubt the statement, 
even while making it. 

It is positive, however, that on April 10, 
1603, certain merchants of Bristol in England, 
and others, sent out two vessels for the pur- 
pose of trading with the Indians for cargoes of 
sassafras and furs. 

In those days sassafras was highly esteemed 
as a medicine for the cure of the plague, 
scurvy, and other ills. 

This little squadron was composed of the 



THE FIRST WHITE MEN. 9 

ship Speedwell, fifty tons burden, commanded 
by Martin Pring and manned by thirty men 
and boys, and the bark Discoverer, twenty-six 
tons, commanded by William Browne, with a 
crew of thirteen men and one boy. 

Pring was the leader of the expedition. 

This expedition landed, after touching at 
different places along the coast, among the 
islands of Pemaquid Bay, leaving there a small 
party of settlers in order to make good the 
claim of the king of England to the country. 

Later in the season, perhaps in October, 
Monsieur de Monts, a Frenchman, who had 
attempted to found a colony on the island of 
St. Croix, entered the Kennebec River, and 
claimed the territory in the name of his sove- 
reign. 

More than this is not known regarding the 
first white men who landed upon the shores of 
what has been successively known as the Pema- 
quid Patent, the Pemaquid Plantation, the 
Muscongus Grant, and the Sagadahock Terri- 
tory. 



10 TEE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

THE ARCHANGEL. 

On the 5th of March, 1605, George Wey- 
mouth set sail from Ratcliff, England, in the 
ship Archangel, under the patronage of Lord 
Arundel, bound for the eastern shores of North 
America. 

He sighted the land of Cape Cod; but be- 
coming alarmed by the shoals of sand which 
made out from the shore, put to sea again, 
and on the evening of Friday, May 17, came 
in view of what is now known as the Island 
of Monhegan, but which Weymouth called 
St. George. 

Landing here for wood and water, the voy- 
agers found traces of recent fires where cook- 
ing had been done, and thus knew they were 
near to the habitations of the Indians. 

It was also possible for them to see the 
mainland ; and, on the 19th of May, the Arch- 
angel was sailed to a safe anchorage in what 
Weymouth names " Pentacost Harbor," but 
which we now know as Boothbay Harbor. 



THE ARCHANGEL. 11 

The voyagers had brought with them tim- 
bers and plank with which to build a shallop ; 
and here, as Mr. Sewall writes, "the material 
for the new boat was taken on shore and her 
frame set up. The ship's crew digged for 
water, and, finding a spring, inserted an 
empty cask to make it well up, discovering 
in their digging excellent clay for brick and 
tile." 

A rude hut was erected in order that the 
voyagers might lay claim to the title of set- 
tlers, and a garden planted. Then, when the 
shallop had been put together, she was sent 
out to explore the harbor, and the rivers 
running into it, Captain Weymouth himself 
heading the party. 

While the explorers were absent, three 
Indians visited the ship in a friendly manner, 
and, after remaining on board several hours, 
by signs gave the crew to understand that 
they would return later with more of their 
people. 

Within twenty-four hours the shallop re- 



12 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

turned, with the report that a great river had 
been found, " which ran up into the mainland 
about forty miles ; " and it was the purpose 
of Captain Weymouth to return with all his 
force of men to make further discoveries, for 
he fancied it might be dangerous to venture, 
with so small a party as manned the shallop, 
into a country where it was already ascertained 
dwelt a goodly number of savages. 

Before this plan could be carried out the 
ship was visited by twenty-eight natives, who, 
so far as was possible by signs, assured the 
white men that they were disposed to be 
friendly. 

THE INDIANS. 

Since that time when Captain Weymouth 
anchored in Pentacost Harbor, students of 
history have learned with reasonable exactness 
that certain Indians of Maine were an orderly 
people, having for their chief town a settle- 
ment which they called Norumbegua, and 
which was located near Pemaquid, probably in 



THE INDIANS. 13 

the vicinity of what is now known as Dama- 
riscotta. Their ruler or king bore the title of 
Bashaba; and his tribe, or subjects, called 
themselves Wawennocks. 

Mr. Sewall writes : " To the east and north- 
east of the dominions of the Bashaba dwelt the 
people of the Tarratines, enemies of the Bash- 
aba, who had many. The Wawennocks, his 
subjects, dwelt on the Sheepscot and Pema- 
quid; but the fierce Tarratines occupied and 
held the waters of the Penobscot. The Bash- 
aba of the Wawennocks had powerful allies, 
the western Sagamores, commanding from one 
thousand to fifteen hundred bowmen. 

"Mavooshen was the name of the territory 
wherein was the seat of his dominion, which, 
therefore, was the aboriginal designation of 
the country watered by the Sheepscot and 
Pemaquid; and on account of the proximity 
and facilities of water passage, the wild and 
ferocious Tarratines made forays into the 
Bashaba's country. 

"A protracted border war grew up, and 



14 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

ripened into a cruel and exterminating conflict 
within ten or twelve years after Weymouth's 
visit to Pentacost Harbor. Varied success 
marked the progress of the contest, till the 
Tarratines by treachery secured an opportunity 
to surprise the Wawennock sovereign, sacked 
his capital, made captives of his women, and 
escaped. Pestilence trod hard on the heels 
of war till the utter desolation of the Bashaba's 
dominion was completed." 

THE FIRST CAPTIVES. 

Captain Weymouth, probably thinking it 
would be to his benefit, on the return to Eng- 
land, if he could exhibit some natives, took 
advantage of their friendliness and made pris- 
oners of five savages, together with their 
two canoes, and bows and arrows. 

With these unfortunates confined in the 
hold of his ship he sailed up the river to where 
the present city of Bath is located, and after 
exploring the country nearabout the banks of 



THE FIRST CAPTIVES. 15 

the Sagadahock and Kennebec Rivers, put to 
sea on the 16th day of June, bound home for 
England. 

It should be explained here that from the 
narrows, where the Kennebec and Androscog- 
gin Rivers join, to the sea, the waters of the 
two streams were called " Sagadahock," known 
by the Indians as " Sunkatunkarunk," meaning 
the " mouth of rivers." 

The story which Weymouth told, and con- 
firmed by a show of his captives, caused much 
interest and excitement in England toward 
that section of the country roundabout the 
harbor and rivers of Pemaquid and Sagada- 
hock. 

Lord Popham, Chief Justice of England, 
organized an expedition to settle the country 
which had been explored by Captain Wey- 
mouth, and sent out a ship in the year 1606, 
which vessel, however, was captured by the 
Spanish, and the colonists on board doomed 
to imprisonment and disappointment. 

In 1607, Lord Popham fitted out a second 



16 THE STORY OF PUMA QUID. 

expedition made up of the ship Mary and 
John, commanded by George Popham, and 
a fly-boat called the Grift of Grod, which last 
had as commander Raleigh Gilbert. Besides 
the sailors, the company consisted of one hun- 
dred and twenty planters, and the five Indians 
captured by Captain Weymouth, who were 
now to be employed as guides and interpreters. 
The expedition left Plymouth in June, 1607. 

On the 6th of August, in the same year, the 
vessels came to anchor off St. George (Monhe- 
gan) Island, and, three days later, arrived at 
the mouth of the Pemaquid River. 

Captain Popham spent much time exploring 
the country roundabout, and on the 18th of 
August decided upon a location at the mouth 
of the Sagadahock River. 

THE FIRST SETTLEMENT. 

Religious services were held on the day 
following, when a sermon was preached, and 
George Popham chosen governor of the new 




PLAN OF POPHAM : S FORT, ST. GEORGE. 

Ko. t. Bastion on north side. 
No. 2. Outlines of ditch. 
No. 3. Central excavations. 
No. 4. Covered way to water. 
No. 5. Drain. 

A. Space between drain and covered way, 

sloping towards the shore. 

B. Atkins Bay. 



THE FIBST SETTLEMENT. 17 

colony. After this, the first acts of the settlers 
were to set about building a fort and store- 
house, and laying the keel of a vessel. 

"About the 6th of October the fort was 
entirely finished, intrenched, and mounted with 
twelve cannon, and the town was called St. 
George. A church was erected, and fifty 
houses, besides the- storehouse, were reared 
within the fortification. The material for a 
small ship of about fifty tons was gathered and 
put up by the carpenters, under charge of a 
master builder from London by the name of 
Digby. This vessel was launched into the 
waters of the Kennebec, and was called the 
Virginia of SagaddhockP 

Captain Popham died soon after the little 
colony was founded, and, so it is believed, the 
remainder of his company very soon quarrelled 
with the Indians, when they were driven from 
their fortified town. However it may be, we 
know that the town of St. George was aban- 
doned shortly after having been founded, and 
during the four years following no white man 
visited the location. 



18 THE STOBY OF PJEMAQUID. 

Then came Abraham Jennens, a fish mer- 
chant from Plymouth, England, for the waters 
near about the island of St. George (Monhe- 
gan) had already become noted as fine fish- 
ing-grounds. Jennens established posts for 
trading near by, and was carrying on a flourish- 
ing business when Captain Edward Harlow, an 
Englishman who had been sent to make an 
examination of Cape Cod, took shelter from a 
storm under the lee of the island. 

While endeavoring to take captive some of 
the natives, following the example given by 
Weymouth, Harlow was set upon by the In- 
dians, and, after a desperate fight, succeeded 
in making his escape with two prisoners. 

As can be imagined, this second act of 
treachery by white men put an end to the 
friendly behavior of the natives, and from this 
time forth the Indians began to seek revenge. 

Abraham Jennens was forced, because of 
Harlow's act, to temporarily abandon his fish- 
ery, and again the island was left without 
inhabitants. 



CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 19 

About 1611 Sir George Sorners, who was on 
his way from England to Bermuda, landed at 
Sagadahock for water, and there did a certain 
amount of bartering with the natives ; but 
found it extremely difficult to carry on trading 
because of the justifiable suspicions with which 
the Indians regarded men whose skins were 
white. 

CAPTAIN JOHN SMITH. 

In 1614 Captain John Smith sailed from 
England with two vessels, bound for Sagada- 
hock, expecting to find gold and copper in that 
region ; but when off Monhegan he was attacked 
by the Wawennocks, and he finally decided to 
seek precious metals on some more hospitable 
shore. 

It was at this time, as has been said before, 
that the Tarratines were making war against 
the Wawennocks. 

The next visitor to St. George (or Mon- 
hegan) was Edward Rocroft, who came for the 
purpose of loading his ship with sun-dried cod- 



20 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

fish purchased from the natives; but shortly 
after his arrival a French bark put in for the 
same purpose, and her Rocroft took as prize, 
which was neither more nor less than the act of 
a pirate. Because of such crime his crew 
mutinied; and he, overcoming the outbreak, 
forced ashore several of the men just as the 
winter season was approaching. These last 
remained throughout the season in the deserted 
huts which had been built by Abraham Jennens, 
and, perhaps, some of them remained yet longer. 

It must be borne in mind that the people in 
England and France believed gold and silver 
was to be found in abundance almost anywhere 
on this newly discovered continent, therefore 
both noblemen and merchants were eager to 
send out expeditions to North America in the 
hope of reaping very rich returns. 

They also knew that many natives had been 
captured from along the coast of the continent, 
and could understand very well the desire for 
revenge which might -be in the hearts of the 
Indians; therefore, in order to render it in any 



CAPTAIN JOBN SMITB. 21 

degree safe to send traders to this country, it 
was necessary to quiet the fears of the Indians 
which had been aroused so needlessly. 

Because of this it was that Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges, who was making ready to found a 
colony on the coast, sent a ship, commanded by 
Captain Thomas Dermer, to make peace with 
the Indians on that portion of the coast which 
was afterwards to be known as Maine. 

Captain Dermer brought with him one of the 
captives which had been taken from Pemaquid, 
and another who was captured from Cape Cod, 
hoping by the aid of these unfortunate savages 
to gain the confidence of those who had been 
abused, and with the secondary object of reviv- 
ing the settlements near Pemaquid. 

He arrived at St. George (Monhegan) in the 
year 1619, and there restored to his friends, 
Samoset, the captive who had been taken from 
Pemaquid. 

He left on the island a few of the settlers 
who had accompanied him, and was returning 
along the coast when the Indians, who as yet 



V£ THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

were ignorant of what he had just done, set 
upon him while he and his crew were taking 
water on board the ship. All his men were 
killed; and Captain Dermer was so badly 
wounded that he died shortly after, when the 
only survivor of the crew succeeded in making 
his way back to the island. 

NEW SETTLEMENTS. 

During the winter of 1620 those planters 
who had been left on St. George by Captain 
Dermer, removed to the mainland, believing 
there was no longer anything to be feared from 
the savages, and settlements sprang up at 
Pemaquid, Sagadahock, and some of the islands 
in Boothbay Harbor. These villages increased 
so rapidly that we find it set down in the year 
1622, that no less than thirty vessels entered 
Damariscove Harbor, and to this last coast came 
Governor Winslow of the Plymouth Plantation 
in search of food for the starving people on the 
shores of Cape Cod. 



NEW SETTLEMENTS. 23 

He says regarding their charity and hospi- 
tality : " I found kind entertainment and good 
respect, with a willingness to supply our wants 
— which was done as far as they were able, 
and they would not take any pay for the same, 
but did what they could freely." 

Shortly before Governor Winslow's visit, 
Abraham Jennens of Plymouth came back to 
Monhegan and reopened his trading-post, bring- 
ing with him two vessels, the "Abraham of 
Plymouth," 220 tons burden, and the " Night- 
ingale of Portsmouth," a vessel of 100 tons. 

Jennens claimed never to have deserted his 
plantation and trading-post on Monhegan, but 
only to have left them temporarily; and after 
having re-established the business he announced 
his intention of selling the property. Robert 
Aldsworth and Gyles Elbridge, two merchants 
of Bristol, England, hearing of Jennens's in- 
tention, authorized Abraham Shurte, a settler 
at Pemaquid, to purchase for them the entire 
island. 

In writing of this particular time, Mr. 



24 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

Sewall says : " Sagadahock, Sheepscot, and 
Pemaquid were now the center from which set- 
tlements arose. From the Sagadahock, popula- 
tion flowed upward and onward till Phipsburg, 
Bath, Georgetown, and Woolwich were settled. 
From Sheepscot have sprung Wiscasset, Dres- 
den, Alna, Newcastle, Edgecomb, Westport, 
Damariscotta, and perhaps the more eastern 
towns of Waldoboro, Warren, Thomaston, and 
St. George. 

" Now it was that King James began to dis- 
pose of the lands in North America not already 
given to the company which had settled in 
Virginia." 

ROYAL GRANTS. 

November 3, 1620, a charter of grant was 
given to a certain company consisting of 
forty " noblemen, knights, and gentlemen," 
who called themselves " The Plymouth Com- 
pany," to all that territory "between the 
fortieth and forty-eighth degrees of northern 
latitude, in breadth ; and in length by the 



ROYAL GRANTS. 25 

same breadth throughout the mainland from 
sea to sea." In other words the king had thus 
disposed of all the lands from the Bay of 
Chaleur nearly to the mouth of the Hudson 
River. 

August 10, 1622, Sir Ferdinando Gorges 
and Captain John Mason procured from the 
Plymouth Company a patent of all the coun- 
try between the Merrimac and Sagadahock 
Rivers, which they called the " Province of 
Laconia." 

From these two grants or patents arose 
various claims, as shall be shown later. 

It may be well to explain that a " patent," 
or, more strictly speaking, " letters patent," are 
so called because they are commonly addressed 
by the sovereign to all subjects at large, and 
are not sealed up like a secret commission, but 
open, ready to be shown to whom it might 
concern. 

In 1623 Captain Christopher Leavett came 
from England in search of a home, landing first 
at the Isles of Shoals, and next visiting what 



26 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

the Indians called Cape Newagen, — the present 
towns of Boothbay and Southport. There he 
remained four days trading with the Indians, 
who were very friendly with him, after which, 
as Master Leavett himself writes : " the next 
day the wind came fair, and I sailed for Quack, 
or York, with the king, queen, and prince, bow 
and arrows, dog and kitten in my boat; his 
noble attendants rowing by us in their canoes." 
Master Leavett decided to settle in Casco 
Bay rather than nearabout Pemaquid; and it is 
supposed that it was on Great Hog Island he 
made his plantation, where he was speedily 
on friendly terms with the Indians. 

THE FIRST TITLE. 

The first title to land in this section of the 
country was probably that acquired by John 
Brown of New Harbor, who bought from the 
Sagamores, John Somerset and Unnogoit, the 
present territory of the towns of Bristol and 
Damariscotta. This purchase was made July 



THE FIRST TITLE. 27 

15, 1625, and the price paid was fifty beaver- 
skins. 

The Plymouth Company in this same year, 
1625, made a grant known as the Muscongus 
Grant, under which Edward Ashley, agent, and 
William Pierce, assistant, took possession of 
the eastern shore of St. George's River, five 
miles below the head of tide-water. There 
they erected a truck-house and established a 
trading-post, employing five persons and a 
small vessel in the trade. Thus the site of 
the town of Thomaston was selected and im- 
proved. 

Concerning the chief settlements on the east- 
ern coast, Thornton, the historian, says : 

" While the pilgrims were struggling for life 
at Plymouth, and Conant founding Massachu- 
setts at Cape Ann, Pemaquid was probably the 
busiest place on the coast." 

Mr. Sewall writes on the same subject: 
" Pemaquid, now the property of the Bristol 
merchants Aids worth and Elbridge, under 
titles from the President of the Council of New 



28 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

England, l on condition that they have and will 
transport, and do undertake to transport at their 
own cost and charges, divers persons into New 
England, and there erect and build a town and 
settle inhabitants,' at once became a noted 
place. Abraham Shurte, agent for the Bristol 
merchants, represented their interests, and re- 
ceived the transfer of title and possessions from 
Walter Neal, the agent of the Council. 

" This acquisition, and the conditions thereof, 
laid the foundation for the existence and im- 
portance of Pemaquid, where Thomas Elbridge 
subsequently resided and held a court, to which 
the residents on Monhegan and Damariscove 
repaired and continued their fishing. Thus 
Pemaquid became the chief center of trade, 
law, and authority, a larger and more important 
settlement than Quebec, the capital of Canada. 
Eighty-four families, besides fishermen, em- 
bracing a population of more than five hun- 
dred souls, now occupied Pemaquid and its 
vicinity." 



ROYAL GRANTS AND PATENTS. 29 

ROYAL GRANTS AND PATENTS. 

Now has come the time when must be set 
down such dull reading as necessarily comes 
from consideration of legal grants and patents, 
or claims made by those who believed them- 
selves wronged ; but it is necessary one should 
thoroughly master the matter in order to 
understand all of the history which follows. 
Mr. Williamson thus sets it down : 

" The earliest settlements seem to have been 
on the western banks of Pemaquid River, in 
1623 or 1624. A deed of lands in this quarter 
was executed by two Sagamores to John 
Brown, July 15, 1625 ; and according to the 
deposition of Abraham Shurte, he himself, as a 
magistrate of Pemaquid, took the acknowledg- 
ment of it in the same month of the following 
year. Shurte was the agent of the proprietors, 
and five years previously he had purchased for 
them the island of Monhegan. 

" A fort was built there, the year before the 
date of the patent, and rifled by pirates in No- 



30 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

vember, 1632. Formal possession was given and 
taken under the same instrument, May 27, 
1633, in the presence of Thomas Commock, 
Christopher Burnhead, George Newman, Wil- 
liam Hook, and Robert Knight ; and the planta- 
tion had a gradual uninterrupted growth till 
the first Indian war. The settlements extended 
to Damariscotta, and especially at the lower 
falls they were seen rising on both sides of the 
river. 

" The visitants, as well as the inhabitants, 
were highly pleased with the situation of Pema- 
quid. A smooth river navigable a league and 
a half above the point, a commodious haven for 
ships, and an eligible site for a fortress, at once 
filled the eye. Here was a canal cut ten feet in 
width, and variously deep from six to ten feet, 
on the east side of the river which passed the 
first ripples, — an enterprise devised and fin- 
ished at a time and by hands unknown. It 
was twenty rods in length, and passed down a 
smooth inclined plane. No water runs there 
at present. 



PEMAQUID PATENT. 31 

PEMAQUID PATENT. 

" The eighth and last grant of lands by the 
Plymouth Council, within the present State of 
Maine, was the Pemaquid Patent, which was 
dated Feb. 20, 1631. This was to two mer- 
chants of Bristol, Robert Aldsworth and Gyles 
Elbridge. It extended from the sea between 
the rivers Muscongus and Damariscotta, so far 
northward as to embrace 12,000 acres besides 
settlers' lots ; as it also was to include 100 
acres for every person who should be trans- 
ported hither by the proprietors within seven 
years, and reside there three years. The grant 
was made to the patentees in consideration of 
public services past, and their present engage- 
ments to build a town. It included the Dam- 
ariscove islands, and all others within nine 
leagues of the shore. 

"By this instrument, which was a charter 
as well as a patent, extensive privileges were 
secured to the proprietary grantees and their 
associates, and also the powers of establishing 



32 THE STKtRY OF PE MA QUID. 

an administration of civil government. They 
had a right to hunt, fish, fowl, and trade with 
the natives in any part of New England ; and 
these were their exclusive privileges, within 
their own patent. The fee-simple seemed to 
have been granted ; yet upon conditions of for- 
feiture, if conveyed to other than * their 
tenants.' They were authorized to elect such 
civil officers by a major vote, and enact or make 
laws, as the exigency of their affairs required. 
They might seize by force of arms all unlicensed 
intruders, and confiscate their property. But 
no resident governor might ever take a planter 
from his employments, otherwise than for 
public defense. Another patent was to be 
granted, if requested within seven years, under 
some fit name and more ample form of privi- 
leges. 

FRENCH CLAIMS. 

" In 1634 Claude de la Tour, a Frenchman, 
claimed all lands eastward of Pemaquid. 
After attacking Machias settlement, he replied 



FRENCH CLAIMS. 33 

to Mr. Allerton of New Plymouth, who came 
to inquire into the matter : 

" ' My authority is from the king of France ; 
who claims the coast from Cape Sable to Cape 
Cod ; I wish the English to understand if they 
trade to the eastward of Pemaquid, I shall 
seize them; my sword is all the commission 
I shall show; when I want help, I will pro- 
duce my authority.' 

"In 1635 the Plymouth Company, despair- 
ing of making a paying venture out of their 
various grants, decided to divide the whole 
into twelve parts. 

" The first province or division included 
the Muscongus Grant, and the easterly halves 
of the Pemaquid and Kennebec patents; ex- 
tending to the 48th degree. 

" The second division was from Pemaquid to 
Sagadahock — a small division ; including the 
western moiety of Pemaquid patent. The 
Marquis of Hamilton was granted 10,000 acres 
of this last division, and in 1637 his heir 
revived the claim. 



34 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

" In 1635 Sir Ferdinando Gorges was com- 
missioned Governor General over the whole 
of New England ; but he did not come to this 
country. 

" The Sagadahock territory included several 
parts and settlements, connected by no partic- 
ular bond of union or government. It ex- 
tended from Kennebec River to Penobscot 
The principal plantation within its limits was 
Pemaquid, a place of general resort for mari- 
ners and fishermen in the contiguous waters, 
and often visited by persons passing and re- 
passing in vessels between the French settle- 
ments and the English towns and harbors 
westward. It was the seat of government 
within the patent, to Elbridge and Aldsworth, 
and had been settled a fourth part of a century 
or more. The chief magistracy was still in 
the hands of Abraham Shurte, Esq. 



The drowne claim. 35 

THE DROWNE CLAIM. 

" The Pemaquid patent itself was ultimately 
resolved into what has been called the ' Drowne 
Claim.' It was originally a joint tenancy to 
Robert Aldsworth and Gyles Elbridge, and 
enured wholly to the latter by survivorship. 
When his son, John Elbridge, who inherited 
it, died, he devised it, Sept. 11, 1646, to his 
brother Thomas, afterward a resident for a 
period at Pemaquid. In 1650 the latter 
mortgaged Monhegan and Damariscove to 
Richard Russell; and at the same time sold 
half of the patent, half of the household fur- 
niture, and half of the cattle to Paul White, 
for two hundred pounds. Immediate posses- 
sion was given by Thomas Elbridge's attorneys, 
Henry Joscelyn and Robert Jordan, in the 
presence of Arthur Mc Worth and Friend 
Lister. On the 27th of April, 1653, Elbridge 
and White conveyed their respective moieties 
to said Russell and one Nicholas Davidson; 
and the latter taking conveyance from Russell 



36 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

in 1657, of all his rights, became the sole 
proprietor of the Pemaquid patent. One of 
his daughters married with Shem Drowne, 
and hence the origin of this claim. It em- 
braced « all the town of Bristol,' and part 
* of the towns of New Castle and Noble- 
borough.' 

" « The Brown Right ' was another important 
claim. It had its origin in a deed from a 
couple of Sagamores, July 15, 1625, to John 
Brown of New Harbor. (The deed was signed 
by Captain John Somerset and Unnogoit, Indian 
sagamores.) Its southerly line or boundary 
ran from Pemaquid falls to Brown's I ouse, on 
the eastern shore ; and from this line expended 
northerly twenty-five miles, including Mu^con- 
gus Island, and covering * the most of Bristol, 
all the towns of Nobleborough and Jefferson, 
and part of the town of New Castle.' Brown, 
in August, 1660, conveyed to one Gould and 
wife, eight miles square (supposed to be a 
third part, of the whole Indian purchase), about 
midway of the original grant; and William 



THE BROWNE CLAIM. 37 

Stilton, who married their daughter, lived on 
the premises about the year 1720. 

" Though the « Tappan Right ' was of later 
date, it extensively interfered with the others, 
and ought to be mentioned in this place. It 
originated in three Sagamore deeds to Walter 
Phillips, dated 1661-62-74; and embraced a 
great portion of the same lands with the 
4 Brown Claim.' Phillips conveyed to Rev. 
Christopher Tappan, Nov. 10, 1752, a greater 
part, if not all, his Indian purchases, under 
whom surveys were made and possessions 
taken. Though the colonies of Massachusetts 
and New Plymouth, as early as 1633, passed acts 
which forbade such purchases from the natives 
without the license or approbation of their le- 
gislatures, yet they were multiplied in Maine. 

" The first deed to Phillips was signed by 
Josle and Agilike; the second by Wittinose 
and Erledugles; and the third by Erledugles. 
Phillips's first two deeds embraced lands on the 
west side of Damariscotta, now Newcastle, ex- 
tending to Sheepscot River. 



88 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

A CHARTER. 

"At length Sir Ferdinando Gorges obtained 
of King Charles I. a provincial charter possess- 
ing uncommon powers and privileges. It 
bears date April 3, 1639. The territory it 
embraces begins, in the description given, at 
the mouth of the Piscataqua, and extends up 
that river and through Newichawannock and 
Salmon Fall River, « north-westwards one hun- 
dred and twenty miles ; ' from Piscataqua Har- 
bor « north-eastwards along the sea-coast to the 
Sagadahock ; ' thence through that river and 
the Kennebec, 'north-westward one hundred 
and twenty miles ; ■ and thence overland to the 
utmost northerly end of the line first men- 
tioned ; including the north half of the Isles 
of Shoals and the islands ' Capawock and Nau- 
tican near Cape Cod ; ' and also all ' the islands 
and inlets within five leagues of the main, 
along the coasts between the said rivers Pisca- 
taqua and Sagadahock.' 

" By the charter this territory and the inhabi- 



A CHARTER. 39 

tants upon it were incorporated into a body 
politic, and named 'The Province or County 
of Maine.' Sir Ferdinando, his heirs and as- 
signs, were made absolute Lords Proprietors of 
the Province, excepting the supreme dominion, 
faith and allegiance due to the crown, and a 
right to exact yearly a quarter of wheat, and 
a fifth of the profits arising from 'pearl fish- 
ings,' and from gold and silver mines. 

" In 1640 Thomas Gorges, son of Sir Ferdi- 
nando, was appointed Deputy Governor of the 
Province of Maine. His instructions were to 
consult and counsel with the magistrates of 
Massachusetts." 

It was also at about this time that the Massa- 
chusetts Colony began to " adopt " the prov- 
inces east of her border, and established a 
code of orders or ordinances, but found great 
difficulty in executing them. 

Governor Gorges who had done his best to 
uphold Sir Ferdinando's right as proprietor, 
finally abandoned the task, and returned to 
England in 1643. 



40 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

THE RULE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 

The rule of Massachusetts, though at first 
limited, was from time to time extended until 
it embraced the whole seaboard eastward as far 
as Passamaquody. The laws, regulations, and 
politics of Massachusetts were immediately re- 
ceived by the adopted people ; and they all 
became partakers in the administration of civil 
affairs. 

Not only murder, robbery, burglary, treason, 
and arson, but blasphemy, heresy, idolatry, 
witchcraft, perjury, man-stealing, and the strik- 
ing of a parent by a child of ten years old 
and upward, were crimes punished by death. 
Besides the punishment of death, which was 
alwaj^s to be by hanging, and of imprisonment, 
banishment, fines, and the pillory, convicts 
often suffered corporeally by branding, crop- 
ping the ears, and whipping. Every town was 
required to be furnished with stocks, under a 
penalty of five pounds. This was a frame, 
fitted to a post with holes, half formed in a 



THE RULE OF MASSACHUSETTS. 41 

lower and half in a folding plank, through 
which the head and ankles were pnt, of one in 
a sitting posture. Forgery was punished by- 
double damages and the pillory ; theft by treble 
damages ; profanity and spreading false news, , 
by fine, or the stocks; gambling, assaults and 
batteries, and drunkenness by fine or imprison- 
ment. Idleness was viewed with marked re- 
proach, as well as an inlet of every evil ; and 
all strolling travelers, vagrant hunters, and 
" tobacco takers " were obnoxious to the law. 
To demand an exorbitant price for labor was 
a finable offense in 1635. 

The General Court required every town of 
fifty householders to employ a teacher a suffi- 
cient time for the instruction of their children 
to read and write ; and in every town contain- 
ing one hundred families a grammar school was 
to be kept, where youth might be fitted for 
college. Heads of families were directed by 
law to catechize their children and servants 
every week in the principles of religion ; and 
the selectmen were required to see that the 



42 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

youth of their town were properly educated, 
and trained to some gainful or useful calling. 
Dancing, games at shuffle-board, and bowling in 
taverns were strictly forbidden. To wear the 
hair long was a misdemeanor. 

WHY NAMED "MAINE." 

As to why the province was called " Maine," 
Williamson claims that owing to the fact of 
some of the islands having been first settled, 
the people were in the custom of referring to 
the mainland simply as " the mayn," and the 
patent which was given to John Mason men- 
tions it as referring to " a tract of land upon 
the mayn ; " historians generally, however, 
believe that the name Maine was chosen in 
compliment to the queen, who had inherited a 
province of the same name in France. 

Having thus set down in fewest words possi- 
ble such details of ownership and government 
as seemed necessary to an understanding of the 
condition of affairs in this particular portion of 



WHY NAMED "MAINE." 43 

the province, we will now take up the local 
history of the several settlements with which 
this story deals, and go back again to the year 
1632, when a party of Indian traders number- 
ing sixteen, under the leadership of Dixy Bull, 
who had been carrying on their business in 
the vicinity of Monhegan, deliberately turned 
pirates. 

Their first act was to make an attack upon 
the fort at Pemaquid, in order to silence its 
guns while they plundered the vessels in the 
immediate vicinity. 

One of the newly-made pirates was killed; 
and as he fell the others drew off, but remained 
in the vicinity, robbing houses and carrying 
away crops, until the following summer. 

After this lawless band had captured several 
vessels at sea, a force of forty men, commanded 
by Hilton and Neal, set out from Piscataqua in 
four shallops, determined to free the coast from 
the pirates. 

This little navy, the first probably in New 
England, was windbound in Pemaquid Harbor 



44 TEE STOBY OF PEMAQUID. 

nearly four weeks ; but the knowledge of their 
intentions was sufficient to drive away those 
who sailed under the black flag, and on the 
following year Dixy Bull was captured by the 
king's ships off the English coast, and hanged. 

THE FIRST MURDER. 

The first murder on the Sagadahock was 
committed by Captain Hoskins, who had come 
in a vessel owned by Lords Say and Brooke 
from Piscataqua to trade with the Indians, but 
who was forbidden to do so by John Alden, a 
magistrate at Cushnoc (Augusta). 

Hoskins insisted upon his right to deal with 
the natives, and remained at anchor after hav- 
ing been ordered to leave the river. Alden 
sent three men to cut the cables of his 
vessel, whereupon the captain threatened to 
shoot whoever should raise an ax. One of the 
men persisted, and Hoskins shot him dead, 
when the other two returned the fire, and the 
captain himself was killed. 



THE FIRST MURDER. 45 

A few months later, when Alden visited 
Boston, he was arrested on a warrant procured 
by a relative of Hoskins ; but the court found 
that it was a case of " excusable homicide," 
since the colonists had the exclusive rights to 
trade, within their patent, and might warn off 
any trespassers. 

In Mr. Se wall's History of Maine we are told 
that Mowhotiwormet, one of the native chief- 
tains who ruled over and owned as the original 
lord a territory embracing Boothbay Harbor 
on the southeast, and Sagadahock on the west, 
was nicknamed by the English settlers " Robin- 
hood." It was this Indian who sold in 1639 to 
John Brown and Edward Bateman, " planters 
of Pemaquid," a title to what is now the site of 
the town of Woolwich, for a hogshead of corn 
and thirty pumpkins. 

That Pemaquid was a thriving village in 1640 
we have reason to believe from a statement in 
the history of Salem, Massachusetts, where is 
set down the fact that Joseph Grafton sailed 
from Salem to Pemaquid in a forty-ton vessel, 



46 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

and at the latter place purchased twenty cows 
and oxen, returning from his voyage in four 
days. 

The island on the east side and forming the 
east bank of the Sagadahock, known at that 
time by the name of Reskeagan, was sold in 
1649 by the Indian chief Sebona to John 
Parker, a fisherman from Boston. 

In the same year Robinhood sold to John 
Richards an island in the Sheepscot, which was 
then known as Jeremy Squam, which island is 
now the town of Westport. 

WILLIAM PHIPS. 

Ik 1650, on the 2d day of February, was 
born, not far from Wiscasset, on Monseag Bay, 
William Phips, who was to win for himself 
renown as governor of Massachusetts. 

In 1654 a court was organized at Merry 
Meeting, in the house of Thomas Ashley. 
Thomas Purchas was appointed presiding jus- 
tice, and Thomas Ashley chosen constable. 



WILLIAM PRIPS. 47 

In 1658 Major Clark and Captain Lake, 
merchants of Boston, purchased Arrowsic 
Island, and laid out a town in ten-acre lots ; 
they erected a warehouse, several dwelling- 
houses, and a fort. 

During the following year John Parker, who 
in 1649 purchased the Island of Reskeagan, 
bought from Robinhood a tract of land on the 
west side of the Sagadahock River (embracing 
the principal portion of the territory of the 
present town of Phipsburg), paying therefor 
a yearly rent of one bushel of corn, and one 
quart of liquor, to be delivered at or before 
" every twenty-fifth day of December." 

On the 29th of May, 1660, the Rev. Robert 
Gutch bought from several Sagamores, among 
whom was Robinhood, that land on which is 
now built the city of Bath, he occupying it as 
a plantation, and calling it Long Reach. 

Mr. Williamson, writing concerning this 
date, mentions the following settlers as being 
prominent in the province : " Walter Phillips 
lived at Damariscotta lower falls (Newcastle) ; 



48 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

Abraham Shurte lived at Pemaquid ; John 
Brown at New Harbor ; Sander Gould at 
Broad Cove on Broad Bay ; George Davie 
resided at Wiscasset Point ; and John Mason 
at Sheepscot Great Neck." 

Jan. 11, 1664, Sir Ferdinando Gorges ob- 
tained from the king an order to the Gover- 
nor and Council of Maine by which they were 
required forthwith to restore unto him his 
Province and give him quiet possession of it. 

GRANT TO THE DUKE OF YORK. 

March 12 in the same year, however, the 
king granted to his brother James, Duke of 
York and Albany, territory in New York and 
also "all that part of the main land in New 
England beginning at a place known by the 
name of St. Croix, next adjoining New Eng- 
land ; thence extending along the sea-coast to 
a place called Pemaquid, and up the river 
thereof to its farthest head, as it tendeth 
northward ; thence at the nearest point to 



GRANT TO THE DUKE OF YORK. 49 

the river Kennebec ; and so upward by the 
shortest course to the River Canada, north- 
ward." This, besides being denominated " The 
Duke of York's Property," has been called 
" The Territory of Sagadahock ; " but the 
Duke's agents wrote it New Castle, being the 
same name given to the south-western section 
of his patent on the Delaware. They also 
called it the County of Cornwall. 

Now it was that Massachusetts set up her 
claim to that territory known as the " Province 
of Maine," and the matter remained unsettled 
for many years. The king sent commissioners 
to look into the business. Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges insisted upon his claim being allowed, 
the Duke of York held stubbornly to his rights 
under the royal grant, and Massachusetts in- 
sisted that she had received full ownership 
from the crown. 

The royal commissioners, after spending two 
months in other parts of the Province, arrived 
at Sagadahock, and opened court, Sept. 5, 1665, 
at the dwelling of John Mason, who lived on 



50 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

the east bank of the Sheepscot River, at the 
Great Neck, not far from a block-house or 
small fort, which was half a league westerly of 
Damariscotta lower falls. 

The nominal administration at Pemaquid 
under Mr. Shurte was still a mere conserva- 
tion of the peace without much system of 
efficiency. 

The commissioners appointed Walter Phil- 
lips of Damariscotta, clerk and recorder. They 
formed the whole territory into a county by the 
name of Cornwall; named the Sheepscot plan- 
tation Dartmouth, or New Dartmouth; and 
settled the dividing line between it and Pema- 
quid. 

Next they summoned the inhabitants in the 
several settlements to appear and take the oath 
of allegiance. Only twenty-nine appeared, 
however : From Sagadahock, William Friswell, 
Richard Hammond, John Miller, Robert Mor- 
gan, Thomas Parker, Marcus Parsons, Thomas 
Watkins, John White. From Sheepscot, Wil- 
liam Dole, William Dyer, Christopher Dyer, 



GRANT TO THE DUKE OF YORK. 51 

Nathaniel Draper, Thomas Gents, William 
James, William Markes, John Mason, Thomas 
Mercer, Walter Phillips (clerk), Moses Pike, 
Robert Scott, Andrew Stalger, John White, 
John Taylor. From Pemaquid, Thomas El- 
bridge, Admund Arrowsmith, George Buck- 
land, Henry Champness, Thomas Gardiner. 
From Arrowsic, Nicholas Raynal. 

Early in October the commissioners returned 
to York, and on the following year were re- 
called by the king at the beginning of the war 
between France and England. 

At the July term of court held at Wells, 
1665, it was ordered that " every, town take 
care that there be in it a pair of stocks, a case 
and couking (ducking) stool, erected between 
this and the next court." The latter was the 
old instrument for the punishment of common 
scolds. It consisted of a long beam moving 
like a well-sweep upon a fulcrum; the end 
extended over a pond, on which the culprit was 
placed and immersed. 



52 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

MASSACHUSETTS TAKES POSSESSION. 

May 20, 1668, the General Court of Massa- 
chusetts took formal possession of the Province 
of Maine. 

In 1668 Henry Joscelyn (one of Sir Fer- 
dinando Gorges' provincial councillors, and 
commissioned by the king as a judge for 
Massachusetts) settled "at Pemaquid, where, 
for several years, he continued to act in his 
official capacity." 

Massachusetts opened a court at Pemaquid 
in May, 16 74, which was attended by "a con- 
siderable number of people." According to 
their express desire, the court first formed this 
section of the Massachusetts jurisdiction, from 
Sagadahock to George's River inclusive, into 
a county by the name of Devonshire. 

Next they administered the oath to eighty- 
four inhabitants present. Thomas Gardiner, of 
Pemaquid, was appointed county treasurer; 
Richard Oliver, of Monhegan, clerk of the 
court and -recorder; Thomas Humphrey, of 



MASSACHUSETTS TAKES POSSESSION. 53 

Sagadahock, marshal, who, as executive officer 
of the county, was directed to take charge of 
the prison. Thomas Humphrey, of Sagadahock, 
and Robert Gammon, of Cape Newagen, were 
appointed constables. Mr. Gardiner, Mr. Gam- 
mon, and Capt. Edward Patteshall, of Saga- 
dahock, were appointed plantation, or local 
commissioners, with power to marry, hold 
court, etc. 

Five trainbands 1 were formed; one each at 
Sagadahock, Pemaquid, Damariscove, Cape 
Newagen, and Monhegan; but no officers of 
higher grade were appointed over them than 
sergeants and corporals, except two companies, 
the one at Sagadahock under command of Cap- 
tain Patteshall, and the one at Pemaquid under 
Captain Gardiner, who was likewise " to have 
the command and regulation of all the mili- 
tary forces and affairs throughout the country." 

Eight jurymen were appointed, Robert Ed- 
munds and Ambrose Han well, of Sagadahock ; 

1 The term " trainband " is simply a contraction of the 
words " trained band." 



54 THE STORY OF PEMAQVID. 

John Wiford, Elias Trick, and John Prior, of 
Damariscove ; George Bickf ord and Reynold 
Kelley, of Monhegan; and John Cole, of 
Pemaquid. 

At this time there were as many as one hun- 
dred and fifty-six families east of Sagadahock, 
and between that river and St. George's River, 
near to one hundred fishing-vessels owned by 
the people there. 

INDIAN WARS. 

Until 1675 the settlers had lived in peace 
with the Indians, and then was begun in Massa- 
chusetts the First Indian, or King Philip's 
War. 

Perhaps it may be as well to set down here 
the different Indian wars and treaties, that the 
dates may be used for future reference : 

Mugg's Treaty, Nov. 6, 1676. 

1st War : King Philip's War, from June 24, 1675, 
to the Treaty of Casco, April 12, 1678. 

2d War : King William's War, from Aug. 13, 1688, 



KING PHILIP'S WAR. 55 

to the treaty of Mare Point, Brunswick, Jan. 7, 1699, 
during which was Treaty of Pemaquid, Aug. 11, 1693. 

3d War : Queen Anne's War, from August, 1703, to 
Treaty of Portsmouth, July 11, 1713. 

4th War : Lovewell's War, from June 13, 1722, to 
Dummer's Treaty, Dec. 15, 1725. 

5th War : The Spanish, or Five Years' War, from 
July 19, 1745, to the Treaty of Halifax, Aug. 15, 1749. 

6th War : French and Indian War, from April, 1755, 
to the conquest of Quebec, and Treaty of Halifax, Feb. 
22, 1760, and Powual's Treaty, April 29, 1760. 

Treaty with the Mickmaks and Marechites, July 19, 
1776. 

KING PHILIP'S WAR. 

King Philip's War broke out in the colony 
of Plymouth, June 24, 1675, and within twenty 
days spread into the Province of Maine. The 
Indians took into custody several settlers about 
Piscataqua, and when valuable presents had 
been made, set them at liberty. 

The General Court appointed Captains Lake, 
Patteshall, and Wiswell at Sagadahock, a " com- 
mittee, and entrusted them with the general 
superintendence and military power over the 
eastern parts." The court also gave them 



56 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

directions to furnish themselves with all ne- 
cessary munitions of war for the common 
defense, and to sell neither knife, gun, powder 
nor lead to any Indians other than those whose 
friendship was fully known. 

When the news of King Philip's war reached 
York, July 11, from the colony of Plymouth, 
Henry Sawyer, one of the townsmen, dispatched 
a messenger to Sagadahock with the alarming 
intelligence. 

The committee of war met at the house of 
Mr. Patteshall, attended by several of the 
settlers ; and Mr. Walker, a trader at Sheeps- 
cot, induced a part of the Indians about him 
to surrender their guns and knives. 

To ascertain more fully the true disposition 
of the natives, a party of volunteers proceeded 
up the Kennebec River, and presently met with 
five Anassagunticooks and seven of the Canibas 
tribe, all of whom came in and delivered their 
arms. 

Amidst the conversation, however, one 
Sowen, a Canibas Indian, struck at Hosea 



KING PHILIP'S WAR. 57 

Mallet, a by-stander, and could hardly be pre- 
vented from taking his life. 

The assailant was instantly seized and con- 
fined in a cellar. The Indians confessed that 
his crime deserved death, yet requested his 
discharge; offering a ransom of forty beaver 
skins for his release, and several hostages for 
his future good behavior, all giving their hands 
in pledge of their sincerity. 

The proposal was accepted, and So wen was 
released. 

To secure their future friendship and fidelity, 
Captain Lake then refreshed them with the best 
of victuals, supplied them with tobacco, and 
repeated to them the most solemn promises of 
protection and favor if they would continue 
peaceable and quiet. 

A great dance was given by the Sagamores 
next day, when the peace was celebrated with 
songs and shouts. 

At Stevens' River, two leagues below Bruns- 
wick falls, at Saco, and at Presumpscott River 
in Falmouth, savage attacks were made by the 



58 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

Indians during the month of September. In 
Scarborough, Winter Harbor, and Wells were 
also scenes of bloodshed. 

On the easterly bank of Sagadahock, at S tin- 
son's point (in Woolwich), Richard Hammond 
had erected a training-house and fortification, 
and, two miles distant, upon Arrowsic, not far 
from Georgetown, Clark and Lake had built 
another. They had also in the vicinity a man- 
sion-house, mills, out-buildings, and cultivated 
fields. 

They had, besides, a trading-house in the 
neighborhood of the Indian fort, at Teconnet 
falls, whither the Canibas Indians had retired 
with their families, receiving supplies princi- 
pally from that house, and showing no signs 
of . rupture till after the burning of Scar- 
borough. 

In the great excitement against the Indians 
many people acted with shameful indiscretion ; 
threatening with violence some of the most 
benevolent promoters of peace. 

The Monhegan islanders offered a bounty of 



THE WRITE MAN'S TREACHERY. 59 

five pounds for every Indian's head that should 
be brought to them. 

To allay the jealousies of the Indians, and 
bring home the guns, powder, and other articles 
from the trading-house near Teconnet falls, 
Captain Davis sent a messenger to urge kindly 
the Indians to live near him down the river. 

The messenger, instead, threatened them 
with death if they did not at once deliver up 
their arms, and so alarmed the Indians that 
they beat a hasty retreat to the home of the 
Baron de Castine, on the Penobscot. 

THE WHITE MAN'S TREACHERY. 

But Abraham Shurte, chief magistrate of 
the plantation at Pemaquid, who was a man of 
good sense and well acquainted with the Indian 
character, left no efforts unessayed till he had 
succeeded in having a parley with the disaf- 
fected Sagamores ; for which purpose they 
were persuaded to meet him at his own village. 

The discussion resulted in a truce, by which 



60 THE STOBY OF PEMAQUID. 

the Indians engaged to live in peace with the 
English. 

General warrants were issued for seizing 
every Indian known to be a traitor, manslayer, 
or conspirator, because of the rumor that the 
several tribes in the east were to rise against 
the inhabitants everywhere. 

These warrants, which afforded every man 
a plausible pretext to seize suspected savages, 
were obtained by several shipmasters for the 
most shameful purposes. One, with his vessel, 
lurked about the shores of Peinaquid, when 
Mr. Shurte, acquainted with his errand, en- 
treated him to depart; assuring him that the 
English and the natives in the vicinity were 
in a state of profound peace, and warning 
the Indians likewise to beware of his wiles. 
Yet he treacherously caught several, and carry- 
ing them into foreign parts, sold them for 
slaves. 

Greatly incensed by these unprovoked 
affronts, the Indians complained to Mr. Shurte, 
stating that many of their brothers were miss- 



THE WRITE MAN'S TREACHERY. 61 

ing. To conciliate them Mr. Shurte assured 
them that their friends should be returned 
if it was possible to find them, and, later, he 
was invited to meet a number of Sagamores 
in council at Teconnet. 

Then it was that the Indians brought up 
the question of being able to buy powder and 
shot, and since Mr. Shurte could not make 
any promises as to the delivery of such articles, 
the council was broken up in anger. 

About the first of August, hostilities broke 
out afresh at Falmouth; and on the 13th of 
that month Richard Hammond, at Stinson's 
Point (Woolwich), was attacked. 

He had been for a long time a trader with 
the Indians; and they complained of his 
cheating them. 

Remembering his offenses, a vindictive party 
of Indians visited his place, whose looks and 
airs so frightened a young maid that she 
started to run away. But an Indian brought 
her back, and told her she had nothing to fear. 

Still more terrified by the arrival of a larger 



62 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

number of them, she escaped, traveled over- 
land ten miles to Sheepscot plantation, and 
told the story to the people there, adding that 
she had heard, when at a distance from the 
house, a great bustle and heavy blows. 

It was true; the Indians in the first onset 
killed Samuel Smith, Joshua Grant, and also 
Hammond himself, setting fire to the house, 
and making sixteen persons captives. 

Before the assailants started away they 
divided themselves into two bands. One 
ascended the river and took into custody 
Francis Card and his family; the other pro- 
ceeded by water the same night to Arrowsic, 
and landed in great silence on the south- 
easterly point of the island, near the settle- 
ment and fort. 

A part of them cowered down under the 
walls of the garrison, and others secreted 
themselves behind a large adjoining rock, all 
being able to see every movement of the 
sentinel. As he retired from his post before 
the usual hour, without being relieved, he 



PE MA QUID ABANDONED. 63 

was unconsciously followed through the fort- 
gate by the savages in quick succession. 

The English were aroused to a hand-to-hand 
fight. 

Captains Lake, Davis, and others, soon find- 
ing resistance in vain, fled through a back 
door, and jumping into a canoe, strove to 
reach another island. 

Overtaken, however, by their pursuers, just 
as they were stepping on shore, Lake was 
killed by a musket-shot, and Davis so wounded 
that he could neither fight nor flee. Able 
only to creep, he hid himself in a cleft of the 
rocks, and the beams of the rising sun in the 
eyes of his assailant, prevented a discovery. 

Nevertheless, two days elapsed before he 
could, even in a light canoe, paddle himself 
away to the shores of the main. 

PEMAQUID ABANDONED. 

About a dozen other persons, escaping to 
the farther end of the island, found means 
to get off in safety. 



64 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

Lake was an enterprising and excellent 
man; and it is said he would not have been 
killed had he asked quarter, and not presented 
his pistol to his antagonist. 

So proud was the savage of his bloody 
exploit, that he took the hat of his fallen foe 
and wore it as a trophy. 

The number killed and carried into captivity 
was thirty-five persons. All the buildings on 
the island were burned. 

The inhabitants eastward of Arrowsic became 
now so much dismayed that they dared no 
longer abide in their own houses. 

Those of Sheepscot, listening to the story of 
the fugitive girl, made an early retreat to the 
fort at Cape Newagen. 

The people of Pemaquid fled on board their 
vessels ; but being prevented by reason of light 
or adverse winds from reaching Monhegan, 
which they supposed to be an island of the 
greatest safety upon the coast, they were under 
the necessity of going ashore upon one of the 
Damariscove islands. 



PEMAQTJID ABANDONED. 65 

Here they met with Messrs. Callicot and 
Wiswell from Casco and Arrowsic, and all of 
them labored incessantly for two days in con- 
structing a fortification. ' 

However, as soon as they were favored with 
a northerly breeze they abandoned this island ; 
the two gentlemen named sailed for Boston, 
the rest proceeding to Monhegan. 

The islanders and refugees uniting there, 
appointed a watch of twenty-five men by night, 
and a sufficient guard by day, and agreed that 
no vessel should leave the harbor for a week, 
excepting a single one destined to go and bring 
away their household furniture and effects from 
Pemaquid. 

Yet scarcely was this trip performed before 
they saw clouds of smoke arise over their 
burning village, also flames of the houses at 
New Harbor, at Corban's Sound, and upon 
some of the islands. 

Being shortly after informed that no succor 
could be immediately expected from Boston, 
they quitted the island and sailed for that town. 



\j6 the story of pe ma quid. 

On their passage they visited one of the 
Damariscove islands, where they found only 
the relics of recent destruction, two dead 
bodies, the ashes and' fragments of the build- 
ings, and the carcasses of the cattle. " 

In one month fifteen leagues of coast east 
ward of Casco Neck were laid waste. The in- 
habitants were either massacred, carried into 
captivity, or driven to the islands, and the 
settlements abandoned or in ruins. 

Then came the treaty with the sachem 
Mugg, Nov. 6, 1676, and the terror-stricken 
settlers began to have hopes of peace. 

The authorities at Boston were not as con- 
fident, however. It was generally believed in 
Massachusetts that hostilities would be renewed 
in the spring of 1677, and the General Court 
ordered a winter expedition to be fitted out 
eastward. 

This, consisting of one hundred and fifty 
men, of whom sixty were Natick Indians, sailed 
from Boston early in February, under command 
of Majors Waldron and Frost. 



WALDRON 'S INTERVIEW. 67 

WALDRON'S INTERVIEW. 

Waldron landed his troops, Feb. 18, 1676, 
upon Mare Point in Brunswick, a league 
below Maquoit, where they were presently 
hailed by a party of Indians, among whom 
appeared Squando and Simon the Yankee-killer. 
A parley was commenced, in which Waldron 
inquired of Simon, — 

" From what place did you hear of us ? " 

" Purpooduck Head." 

" "Who roused up the Indians to renew the 
war?" 

» Blind Will ; he says he'll kill Waldron." 

" Do you desire peace ? " 

" Yes, and we sent Mugg to Boston for that 
purpose ; he told us you'd be here." 

" Why don't you release the English captives 
according to his promise ? " 

" We will bring them in the afternoon." 

Nothing more was seen of the Indians till 
noon next day, when a little flotilla of fourteen 
canoes was discovered up the bay pulling for 



68 THE STOEY OF PE MA QUID. 

the shore, and presently a house was seen to be 
in flames. 

As Waldron's scouts approached the Indians 
the latter raised a hideous shout, and challenged 
the soldiers to fight. 

Major Frost attacked them from an unex- 
pected quarter, killing or wounding several; 
and another useless parley was held. 

Unable to fight the Indians here to advantage, 
or recover the captives, Waldron sailed to 
Sagadahock. 

Disembarking on the western shore of the 
peninsula opposite the foot of Arrowsic Island, 
and concluding to settle a garrison there, he 
made arrangements for the purpose, and set 
about half of his men to work. 

With the others in two vessels he proceeded, 
Feb. 26, 1676, to Pemaquid. Meeting at that 
place three or four sachems and an assemblage 
of mixed Indians, partly Tarratines, he agreed 
with them, the next day, to lay aside arms on 
both sides, submit to a mutual search, and 
enter upon the negotiation of a treaty. 



WALDRON' S INTERVIEW. 69 

In its commencement Waldron desired them 
to restore their captives ; also to take arms, 
furnish canoes, and proceed against the Anassa- 
gunticooks as a common enemy. 

" A few of our young men only," said an old 
Sagamore, " who cannot be restrained, have had 
any concern in this war. All the prisoners 
with us were received from the Canibas tribe to 
keep, and we must have for supporting each 
one of them twelve beaver-skins and some good 
liquor. Our canoes, you know, are in use ; we 
are bound to Penobscot in them." 

Sufficient liquor was given them, and abun- 
dant ransom was offered; yet only three 
prisoners were produced, or could be obtained. 

Though their sincerity was suspected and 
their treachery feared, another meeting was 
appointed in the afternoon. 

At that time Waldron, espying the point of 
a lance under a board, searched farther, when 
he found other weapons hidden also ; and 
taking one, he brandished it toward them, ex- 
claiming : 



70 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

" Perfidious wretches, you intended to get 
our goods and then kill us, did you?" 

They were thunderstruck ; yet one, more dar- 
ing than the rest, seized the weapon and strove 
to wrest it from Waldron's hand. A tumult 
ensued, in which his life was much endangered. 

Major Frost, laying hold of Megunnaway, 
one of the barbarous murderers of Thomas 
Brackett in Falmouth, hurried him into the 
hold of the vessel. 

Meanwhile an athletic squaw caught up a 
bundle of guns and ran for the woods. 

At that instant a reinforcement arrived from 
the vessels, when the Indians scattered in all 
directions, pursued by the soldiers, either to 
the water's edge or into the forest. 

In this affray Mattahando, a Sagamore, and 
five other Indians were killed. One canoe was 
capsized, from which five were drowned ; and 
four others made prisoners. Waldron preserved 
his goods, and took from the Indians about one 
thousand pounds of beef and some other booty. 
Megunnaway was shot. 



BURYING THE DEAD. 71 

BURYING THE DEAD. 

On their return to Arrowsic they killed two 
Indian plunderers found there, put on board the 
large guns, several anchors, a quantity of wheat 
and boards which had escaped the flames, and 
sent a captive squaw to Teconnet fort, demand- 
ing an exchange of prisoners. 

They likewise left under Captain Sylvanus 
Davis, a garrison of forty men upon the main, 
where it was lately settled, and returned to 
Boston, March 11, without the loss of a man ; 
carrying with them the body of Captain Lake, 
entirely preserved by cold. Two months later, 
in order to bury the bodies of the murdered 
inhabitants which had lain above ground upon 
Arrowsic more than seven months, a large part 
of the garrison opposite proceeded to the island, 
not suspecting danger. 

They were soon fired upon ; an ambush in- 
tercepted their retreat to their boats, and nine 
of them were shot down upon the spot. 

The survivors were soon afterward removed 



72 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

by order of the government to other places, 
such as Casco fort, Black Point, and else- 
where. 

Although the Indian war was taxing the 
energies of Massachusetts, the question as to 
the ownership of Maine was being pressed by 
the parent government. 

To avoid further controversy and trouble, 
Massachusetts fully resolved to purchase of 
Gorges, if possible, all his interest in the 
Province. Accordingly she employed John 
Usher, a trader of Boston, then in England, to 
negotiate the bargain, without awaiting the 
result of any further discussions about the 
ownership. Usher soon effected a purchase, 
and took an assignment of the Province, May 6, 
1677, for which he gave the proprietor .£2,250 
sterling. 

Fearful that the Duke's Sagadahock Prov- 
ince in its present deserted condition might be 
seized upon by the French or other foreign 
nations, Sir Edmund Andros, in June, 1677, 
sent a military force from New York to Pema- 



THE TREATY AT CASCO. 73 

quid, with orders to take possession of the 
country, and build a fort at that place. 

When the garrison was finished he placed in 
it " a considerable number of soldiers," estab- 
lished a custom-house there, and recommended 
an intercourse and traffic with the natives. 

THE TREATY AT CASCO. 

The purchase of Maine by the colony of 
Massachusetts greatly displeased Charles II. 
the reigning king. 

Edmund Andros, ducal governor of New 
York and Sagaclahock, under James, the brother 
of the king, was without doubt his minion, and 
a foe to the purchasers of the territory. For, 
besides taking possession of the provincial 
territory and establishing a fort at Pemaquid, 
Andros manifested a strong disposition to 
monopolize the trade and fishery; but the 
General Court boldly declared : " We shall 
never prevent our people from settling their 
properties in that section, whether upon the 
islands or the main, within our jurisdiction." 



74 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

The General Court invested Major Waldron 
with magistrate's authority to administer the 
qualifying oaths in the counties of Yorkshire 
and Devonshire. 

April 12, 1678, Massachusetts sent commis- 
sioners into Maine, in accordance with requests 
of the Indians ; and at Casco articles of peace 
were signed, whereby all captives present were 
to be released, and those who were absent to 
be returned without ransom. 

All the inhabitants, on returning to their 
homes, were to enjoy their habitations and 
possessions unmolested ; but they were to 
pay for their lands to the Indians, year by 
year, a rental of a peck of corn for every 
English family, and for Major Phillips of 
Saco, who was a great proprietor, a bushel of 
corn. 

Though the close of King Philip's War in 
Maine was the cause of universal joy, the terms 
of peace were generally considered by the Eng- 
lish to be of a disgraceful character. 

The cost of the war in Maine, to the colony 



THE TREATY AT CASCO. 75 

government, was .£8,000, besides incidental 
losses. 

When Governor Andros rebuilt the fort at 
Pemaquid, and some of the planters had re- 
turned to their homes, he renamed the settle- 
ment " Jamestown." The laws which he made 
were executed stringently, although some of 
them would seem at this late day to be arbitrary 
in the extreme. 

No one, " on any pretense," could range 
through the woods, or sail on the creeks. 
Pemaquid and nowhere else should be the place 
for trade. Fishing stages might be erected 
on the islands ; but none were allowed on the 
mainland, except at Pemaquid, near the fort. 
No Indian could visit the fishing islands, and 
" no rum could be drank on the side on which 
the fort stands." All buildings must face" the 
one street which led toward the fort, and none 
could be erected elsewhere. Traders could do 
business only between sunrise and sunset; and 
the time was regulated by the ringing of a bell, 
lest on a cloudy day the hours might by in ten- 



'JB TEE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

tional mistake be extended. No person was to 
remain after sunset upon the point or neck of 
land on which was situated the fort. No per- 
son, save officers and soldiers, could enter the 
fort. 

Mr. Sewall writes : " Now Pemaquid, with its 
city of Jamestown and Fort Charles, was the 
legal center of all intercourse with the natives, 
and was the only port of entry and clearance." 

FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 

In March, 1680, the first General Assembly 
of Maine met at York. 

The death of Abraham Shurte at Pemaquid, 
in 1680, revived certain questions as to the 
legality of the purchase of Monhegan, and his 
sworn deposition regarding the transaction was 
brought forth. It is as follows : 

" The deposition of Abraham Shurte, aged fourscore 
years or thereabouts, saith : — That in the year 1626, 
Alderman Aldsworth and Mr. Gyles Elbridge of Bris- 
tol, merchants, sent over this deponent for their agent, 
and gave power to him to buy Monhegan, which then 



FIRST GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 77 

belonged to Mr. Abraham Jennens of Plymouth, who 
they understood was willing to sell it ; and having con- 
ference with his agent, about the price thereof ; agreed 
to fifty pounds, and the patent to be delivered up ; and 
gave him a bill upon Alderman Aids worth ; which bill 
being presented, was paid, as the aforesaid wrote me. 
The deponent further saith, that about the year 1629, 
was sent over unto him by the aforenamed Alderman 
Aldsworth and Mr. Elbridge, a patent granted by the 
patentees, for twelve thousand acres of land at Pema- 
quid, with all the islands, islets, adjacent, within three 
leagues ; and for the delivery was appointed Capt. 
Walter JSTeale, who gave me possession thereof ; and 
bounded the twelve thousand acres for the use above 
named, from the head of the river of Damariscotta, to 
the head of the river of Muscongus, and between it to 
the sea. Moreover it was granted by the same patent, 
to every servant that they, Alderman Aldsworth and 
Mr. Elbridge, did send over, one hundred acres of land, 
and to every one there born, fifty acres of land, for 
the term of the first seven years ; and to be added to 
the former twelve thousand acres. 

"Likewise this deponent saith, that Damariscove 
was included, and belonging to Pemaquid ; it being an 
island, situate and lying within three leagues of Pema- 
quid Point ; and some years after, Mr. Thomas Elbridge 
coming to Pemaquid, to whom the patent by possession 
did belong and appertain, called a court, unto which 
divers of the then inhabitants of Monhe^an and Dam- 



78 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

ariscove repaired, and continued their fishing, paying a 
certain acknowledgment, and further deponent saith 
not. 

" Sworn to the 25th December, 1662, by Abraham 
Shurte. 

" Before me, Richard Russell, Magistrate." 

" Fort Charles " was the name given by Gov- 
ernor Andros to the fortification at Pemaquid 
which he had caused to be rebuilt, and it was 
under the command of Captain Francis Skinner. 

It was a redoubt, " with two guns aloft, and 
an outwork about nine feet high, with two 
bastions in the opposite angles, in each of 
which were two great guns, and another at the 
gateway. There were fifty soldiers, and suffi- 
cient ammunition, stores of war, and spare arms 
and provisions for about eight months." 

Sept. 8, 1682, orders were sent from New 
York to the people of Jamestown, the capital 
of Pemaquid, to revive the Merry Meeting 
Plantations. The residents of Pemaquid built 
a block-house fort at that point, and a file of 
soldiers, under command of John Rowden, 



EARLY LAWS. 79* 

was detached from Fort Charles to occupy 
the wooden defenses. 

Governor Andros appointed Alexander 
Woodrop as receiver of the public revenue 
at Pemaquid, and John Allen was the justice 
and sheriff. 

EARLY LAWS. 

Among other laws at this time, it was pro- 
vided that only one dog should be allowed to 
each family. A place of trade for the natives 
was opened at Merry Meeting, in addition to 
the post at Pemaquid. All vessels trading or 
fishing in eastern waters were required to give 
an account of their voyages at the Pemaquid 
custom-house. " For the promotion of piety it 
was ordered that a person be appointed to read 
prayers and the Holy Scriptures." Vessels 
whose owners did not live at Pemaquid were 
required to pay yearly four quintals of fish 
in the case of a decked vessel, and if an 
open boat, two quintals of merchantable fish. 
No vessel could enter the Kennebec or any 



80 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

of its waters, which had not cleared from 
Peinaquid. 

In August, 1683, Andros was succeeded by 
Colonel Thomas Dongan as governor of New 
York and Sagadahock. 

John West and John Palmer were appointed 
royal commissioners of the Duke of York to 
aid in the administration of affairs in Sagada- 
hock province. 

These two men visited Pemaquid in the 
summer of 1686, and at once began a most 
cruel abuse of power. They forced the settlers 
to pay rent on their own lands, and exacted 
extortionate fees for drawing up these illegal 
leases. In fact, so unjust were these royal 
commissioners that the people made loud com- 
plaint to the Massachusetts colony ; but at the 
time nothing could be done by way of redress, 
save warn intending settlers or traders away 
from that portion of the coast. 

Mr. Williamson writes : " All Dongan's 
measures in this region were rendered ex- 
tremely unpopular by the cupidity and arbi- 



GOVERN OB ANDROS VISITS PEMAQUID. 81 

trary procedure of his agents, Palmer and 
West ; for they placed and displaced at pleas- 
ure, and some of the first settlers were denied 
grants of their own homesteads, while these 
men were wickedly dividing some of the best 
improved lands for themselves." In 1687 
Dongan was succeeded by Sir Edmund Andros, 
who took up the reins of government once more. 

GOVERNOR ANDROS VISITS 
PEMAQUID. 

Governor Andros visited Pemaquid in 
April, 1688, for the purpose of embarking on 
the frigate Hose for his notorious visit to the 
home of the Baron de Castine. He returned 
to Pemaquid, where, agreeably to previous 
invitation, he was met by several Indians. In 
a parley he said to one : 

" Do not follow, nor yet fear the French. 
Call home all your young men ; be quiet ; live 
in peace ; and we will assist and protect you." 

Turning to a Tarratine sachem he added : 



82 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

"Tell your friend Castine, if he will render 
loyal obedience to the king of England, every 
article taken from him shall be restored at this 
place." 

Hoping to win their good will by courteous 
talk and kind offices, he treated them with 
ardent spirits, and distributed among them 
shirts and some other presents. He thought 
Pemaquid might become the principal mart in 
the eastern country, and ordered the fort to be 
thoroughly repaired, declaring that the inhabit- 
ants need not borrow trouble because of what 
Palmer and West had done, for "their acts 
were of no effect." 

In July, 1688, Nicholas Manning was ap- 
pointed by Governor Andros, Chief Magistrate 
and Judge of the Court in the Province of Saga- 
dahock, " Provided Henry Joscelyn (previously 
appointed from Scarborough) was not there." 

On his return to Boston Governor Andros 
released all the Indian prisoners, and soon 
learned he had made a sad mistake. 

Perceiving war to be inevitable he rushed 



GOVERNOR ANDROS VISITS PE MA QUID. 83 

to the opposite extreme. Determined now to 
subdue the savages or frighten them into terms, 
he collected a force of eight hundred men, and, 
late in November, led them into the eastern 
country, breathing threats and slaughter. 

His soldiers suffered incredibly with the cold 
and fatigue, and several of them perished. He 
neither killed a savage nor took a prisoner. 

To cloak and varnish this inglorious adven- 
ture he proceeded to establish garrisons. 

At Pemaquid he stationed two new compa- 
nies of sixty men each, under Colonel E. Tyng 
and Captain Minot, joined by thirty-six regu- 
lars, and gave command of the garrison to 
Captain Brockholt and Lieutenant Weems. 

In New Dartmouth fort (now Newcastle) 
he placed twenty-four of the regular soldiers 
under Lieutenant John Jordan, also Captain 
Withington's company of sixty men. 

The little fort on the eastern side of the 
Sheepscot was to be relieved every week from 
the garrison at New Dartmouth. A garrison 
at Sagadahock; one at Newton on Arrowsic 



84 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

island; anottysr at Fort Anne (which may 
have been Popham's ancient fort) ; and at 
Pejepscot he distributed 180 men, leaving the 
others (in numbers 566 men) along the coast 
to the westward. 

GOVERNOR BRADSTREET. 

The administration of Governor Andros had 
become odious to the people of Massachusetts ; 
and on the 18th of April, 1689, he was thrown 
into prison by the citizens of Boston, who 
then chose Simon Bradstreet as their governor. 
The consequences of this revolution were most 
disastrous to the frontier plantations of Maine. 

The settlers took sides with one English 
party or the other. Commander Brockholt 
was denounced as a papist, and, as is alleged, 
was ordered from Pemaquid, which order he 
disobeyed. Being suspected of a design to 
desert to the French, he was seized by the 
inhabitants of New Dartmouth, and sent to 
Boston, Lieutenant Weems being left in com- 
mand at the request of the people of Pemaquid. 



GOVERNOR BRABSTREET. 85 

The soldiers became demoralized. Deser- 
tions ensued, and the forces distributed by 
Andros at favorable points to overawe the 
natives were dispersed, all of which must have 
been known to the Indians. 

The ten years' peace had given the settlers 
time to repair the ruins of the last war. " Yet 
they were destitute of sanctuaries for divine 
worship, schools for their children, mills, 
bridges, and even passable roads." 

The Indians were disturbed because the 
English were destroying the hunting-grounds 
by clearing away the forest. The Abenaques 
complained that the corn promised by the last 
treaty had not been delivered according to 
agreement, " and yet their own was destroyed 
by the cattle of the English; and that they, 
being deprived of their hunting and fishing 
places, were liable to perish of hunger." 

The plantation begun at North Yarmouth, 
they thought to be a direct encroachment. To 
deter the inhabitants from completing the 
garrison which they had begun on the eastern 



86 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

shore of Royall's River, the Indians proceeded 
to kill several cattle about the settlement on 
the opposite side, and gave other indications 
of hostility. 

As the work still progressed with redoubled 
efforts, an attack was made, Aug. 13, 1688, 
when both Indians and English were killed. 

KING WILLIAM'S WAR. 

The war known as " King William's " had 
begun. The attack by the Indians wholly 
frustrated the settlement of North Yarmouth 
for several years. The inhabitants soon re- 
moved from the garrison to Jewel's Island, in 
hope that by repairing the fort there they 
might render themselves secure. But they 
were pursued by their inveterate enemies, and 
were barely able to defend themselves success- 
fully. They were afterwards taken off by a 
vessel and carried to Boston. 

Now it was that the Indians began to make 
reprisals. 



KING WILLIAM'S WAR. 87 

Nine settlers about Sagadahock were made 
prisoners; the houses on the north margin of 
Merry Meeting Bay were plundered, and the 
inhabitants who made resistance were mur- 
dered in a barbarous manner. The Indians 
soon after killed several of their captives in 
a drunken frolic, and sent the rest to Teconnet. 

Next they proceeded to New Dartmouth 
(Newcastle), a town which had become re- 
markably nourishing. It had been patronized 
by Governor Dongan, and much enlarged and 
improved by Dutch emigrants. 

At New Dartmouth was a fortification which 
proved to most of the inhabitants a timely 
asylum. In approaching the place, on Sept. 5, 
1688, the Indians first secured Henry Smith 
and his family, and deferred a further attack 
till the next day, when they made Edward 
Taylor and his family prisoners. 

To this interval evidently, may be ascribed 
the preservation of the people ; for they all had 
retired to the garrison when the onset was 
made, and the Indians, flouting in disappoint- 



88 THE STOEY OF PEMAQUID. 

ment, set fire to the deserted houses, reducing 
all save two or three to ruins. 

As an instance of their perfidy and barba- 
rism, they abused the man sent from the fort 
to treat with them, and then assassinated him. 

There was a fort on the banks of the Sheeps- 
cot River, which, with all the buildings, was 
destroyed about this time, and the settlement 
entirely broken up. 

The Dutch settlers migrated from this 
quarter never to return; and the places them- 
selves, so lately and so long inhabited and 
flourishing, lay waste about thirty years. 

The concluding outrage of this year was the 
captivity of Barrow and Bussey, with their 
families, between Winter Harbor and Kenne- 
bunk, who were probably carried to Teconnet, 
the general depository of prisoners. 

In the winter following (viz., in 1688-9) 
Governor Andros placed a garrison at New 
Dartmouth, or Newcastle, of twenty-four regu- 
lars and sixty militia ; he also left men in the 
fort at Sheepscot. Upon the revolution, in 



ATTACK ON PE MA QUID. 89 

April, 1689, he says, of the fort at Newcastle, 
" Most of the men were drawn off, and others 
debauched ; they seized their officer and car- 
ried him a prisoner to Boston, and thereupon 
the fort was deserted." 

In April, 1689, the administration of public 
affairs in Maine, under the direction of Massa- 
chusetts, was resumed by President Danforth 
and the Provincial Council ; Major Frost and 
Colonel Tyng were appointed to command the 
western and the eastern regiments ; and the 
forts underwent a review and general revision. 

ATTACK ON PEMAQUID. 

The garrison at Pemaquid, under the com- 
mand of Captain Weems, was a particular 
object of savage vengeance. Being only a 
kind of resting-place for the inhabitants, it was 
poorly manned, since Brockholt and all except 
Weems and fifteen men had left it, and in 
quite an unfit condition to repel an assault. 

One Starkie, in passing from it, Aug. 2, 1689, 



90 THE STORY OF PJEMAQUID. 

to New Harbor, was seized by a party of 
Indians, who threatened him, yet promised him 
favor if he would tell them all he knew about 
the fort. 

To save his own life he told them with too 
much truth, that Mr. Gyles and fourteen men 
were then gone to the planter's farm at the 
falls, and that the people were scattered about 
the fort, but few in it were able to fight. 

The Indians then divided into two bands ; one 
went and cut off Gyles and his companions, and* 
the other attacked the garrison with a fierce- 
ness and perseverance that forced a surrender. 

The terms of capitulation were life, liberty, 
and safety, all of which were violated ; the sav- 
ages butchering some, and making prisoners of 
others. 

About the same time Captains Skinner and 
Farnham, coming to the shore from a neighbor- 
ing island, were shot dead as they were stepping 
from their boat upon the ledge, and Captain 
Patteshall, whose vessel was lying nearby, was 
also taken and killed. 



ATTACK ON PEMAQUID. 91 

It was understood there were about an hun- 
dred people that belonged to the fort and vil- 
lage ; but when they surrendered on Aug. 20, 
the commander appeared at the head of fourteen 
men only, being all that remained of the men, 
attended by some women and a few children. 

Reduced to despair by these fatalities, which 
were aggravated by fresh depredations of the 
Indians upon the Kennebec, and by Acadian 
privateers upon the coast, the inhabitants east- 
ward of Falmouth withdrew to that town, or 
removed to other places of more security. The 
forts eastward were abandoned ; and a wide 
country, lately adorned with settlements, herds 
and fields, exhibited all the forms and facts of 
a melancholy waste. 

On the 29th of November, 1690, at Sagada- 
hock, a truce was signed by the commissioners 
from Massachusetts, viz., Majors Hutchison and 
Pike, two of the assistants, and Captain Town- 
send, Master of the Province sloop ; and by six 
Sagamores in behalf of all the Abenaques tribes, 
including the Penacooks. 



92 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

But it was, however, preceded by a confer- 
ence of no less than six days, and was finally 
subscribed to by the Sagamores while they were 
in their canoes ; nor was it to continue beyond 
the first of the ensuing May. Still, they stipu- 
lated and agreed to do no injury in the mean- 
time to the English, to deliver up all the 
prisoners present, and, on the first day of May, 
surrender at Storer's garrison, in Wells, all the 
others, and there make a lasting peace. 

They also promised to give the English 
timely notice should the French plot any mis- 
chief against them. Ten English captives were 
then released. 

Only four towns remained in Maine, — 
Wells, York, Kittery, and Appledore, or the 
Isles of Shoals, — and these the enemy had 
evidently marked out for utter and speedy 
destruction. 

At the time appointed, May 1, 1691, Presi- 
dent Danforth, attended by several gentlemen, 
besides some of his council, and guarded by a 
troop of horse, visited Wells in anticipation of 



SIB WILLIAM PRIPS, GOVERNOR. 93 

meeting the Indians and forming a treaty. 
But not one of them appeared, the tribe being 
evidently deterred through French influence. 

SIR WILLIAM PHIPS, GOVERNOR. 

During- the spring of 1692, Sir William 
Phips was commissioned as royal governor 
under the charter of William and Mary. 

The celebrated charter, dated Oct. 7, 1691, 
was brought hither from England by Sir Wil- 
liam Phips, and went into operation May 14, 
1692. 

It divided the whole territory of this State 
into two great divisions, one extending from 
Piscataqua to Kennebec, called the " Province 
of Maine," the other, including all between 
Kennebec and the St. Croix, denominated 
" Sagadahock." 

The eastern coast at this time was infested 
with piratical sea-rovers and freebooters, who 
were committing many depredations. 

The French, it was well known, were eager 



Ix THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

to gain repossession of the extensive territory 
between Sagadahock and Nova Scotia. 

To fight the pirates and keep possession of 
the eastern country, Governor Phips detached 
several companies from the militia, issued 
orders for some enlistments, and commissioned 
Benjamin Church, July 5, 1692, Major-com- 
mandant of the forces, who himself enlisted a 
company of volunteers and a party of friendly 
or praying Indians. 

There was another enterprise which the 
governor had in view, and for accomplishing 
which he had the king's special instructions. 
It was the erection and establishment of a 
strong public fortress at Pemaquid. 

The governor in person, attended by Major 
Church and 450 men, embarked early in 
August, at Boston, for Pemaquid, touching at 
Falmouth, and taking off the great guns from 
that place. 

He determined to build the fortification upon 
a site near the old stockade fort erected by 
order of Edmund Andros, and destroyed three 



SIR WILLIAM PHIPS, GOVERNOR. 95 

years before by the Indians. The plat selected 
was twenty rods from highwater mark, on the 
east side of the river, a league above Pemaquid 
Point. The form adopted was quadrangular, 
in compass 747 feet, measuring around the 
exterior contemplated wall; the inner square, 
including the citadel, being 108 feet across. 

The walls of the fort were constructed of 
stone, cemented in lime-mortar. Their height 
on the south side, fronting the sea, was twenty- 
two feet, on the west eighteen, on the north 
ten, and on the east twelve feet ; and the great 
flanker, or round tower, at the south-western 
corner, was in height twenty-nine feet. Eight 
feet from the ground, where the walls were six 
feet in thickness, there was a tier of twenty- 
eight port-holes. The garrison was finished in 
a few months, the whole cost of which is said 
to have been £ 20,000. Between fourteen and 
eighteen guns were mounted, six of which 
were 18-pounders ; it was manned with sixty 
men, and called Fort William Henry. 

The building of the garrison was committed 



96 THE 3T0BY OF PEMAQU1D. 

to the superintendence and direction of Cap- 
tains Wing and Bancroft, and was finished 
under Captain March, two companies being 
retained to do the work. Major Church was 
dispatched, Aug. 11, with the rest of the 
troops, on a cruise to Penobscot and other 
places in quest of the enemy. 

Major Church's expedition was a failure, so 
far as any decisive result was concerned. 

Late in the autumn of 1692, Iberville, 
arriving at the Penobscot, was joined by 
Villebon and a great body of Indians ; and all 
proceeded to attempt the reduction of Fort 
William Henry. Struck with its apparent 
strength, and finding an English vessel riding 
at anchor under the guns of the fort, the com- 
manders concluded to abandon the enterprise ; 
"the Indians stamping the ground in disap- 
pointment." 

The next spring, 1693, the intrepid Converse 
was commissioned major and commander-in- 
chief of the eastern forces ; and he visited Pem- 
aquid, Sheepscot, and Teconnet several times, 



SIB WILLIAM PHIPS, GOYEBNOB. 97 

On the 11th of August the Indians came 
into the garrison at Pemaquid, and signed a 
treaty of peace, which was not kept, however. 
The French incited the Indians to again destroy 
Dover, N.H., and immediately the bloody work 
was resumed along the coast. 

To effect an exchange of prisoners, Sheepscot 
John, one of the hostages held in Boston, was 
sent to the eastern tribes ; through his influence 
a body of Indians in a flotilla of fifty canoes, 
during the summer of 1695, met some of our 
men belonging to Fort William Henry, at 
Rutherford's Island, situated a league from the 
garrison. They released eight captives, and 
promised to enter into another treaty -of peace, 
but failed to keep their promises. 

On Feb. 16, 1696, Egeremet, Toxus, Aben- 
quid, and a party came into the garrison at 
Pemaquid. Captain Chubb was then in com- 
mand. The Indians had come to negotiate an 
exchange of prisoners ; and in the midst of the 
parley the garrison suddenly fell upon the 
Indians, killed Egeremet, Abenquid, and two 



98 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

others, and took some of them prisoners. Toxus 
and a few others escaped to tell the awful 
story, and add new fuel to the flames of war, 
for the Indians are never guilty of making 
an attack in the midst of a parley. 

CAPTURE OF FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 

Fort William Henry had now become a 
noted public garrison. The French resolved to 
reduce it. Iberville was dispatched from Que- 
bec with two men-of-war and two companies of 
soldiers, directed to form a junction with Ville- 
bon and a company of fifty Mickmak Indians 
at St. John or Port Royal, also with Castine 
and his Indians on the Penobscot, and drive 
the English from the garrison. 

Unfortunately at the same time two British 
ships, the Sorlings, Captain Earners, and the 
Newport, Captain Paxen, also the Province 
tender, sailed from Boston to intercept the 
stores supposed to be on their passage from 
Quebec to Villebon. The two squadrons met ; 



CAP TUBE OF FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 99 

the English were beaten, the Newport being 
captured, and the others escaping in the fog. 

Reinforced by this prize, which Iberville 
repaired at St. John, he and Villebon, with his 
Mickmaks, proceeded to Pemaquid ; taking on 
board at the Penobscot Baron de Castine, who 
was followed by 200 Indians in canoes. The 
whole force invested the garrison, July 14, 
1696, when Iberville sent Captain Chubb a 
summons to surrender. But as the latter had 
fifteen guns well mounted, ninety-five men 
double armed, an abundance of ammunition and 
provisions, and was able to stand a long siege 
against treble his number of soldiers, he 
promptly replied: 

"I shall not give up the fort though the 
sea be covered with French vessels, and the 
land with wild Indians." 

Before the next morning the French landed 
their canoes and mortars ; and by three in the 
afternoon had so far raised their batteries as to 
be able to throw five or six bombs into the fort. 
Amidst the consternation these occasioned, 

LofC. 



100 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

Castine found means to convey a letter to 
Captain Chubb, telling him "if he delayed a 
surrender until an assault was made, he would 
have to deal with the savages, and must expect 
no quarter, for Iberville, according to the king's 
order, was to give none." 

This menacing address effected all that was 
desired; the chamade was beaten, and the 
terms of capitulation stipulated, by which all 
within the garrison were to be conveyed to 
Boston, and as many French and Indians re- 
turned ; and till their removal they were to be 
protected from all injury and insult. 

The gates were then opened, when the 
Indians, finding one of their people in irons, 
were so exasperated by the story of his suffer- 
ings and of Chubb's baseness to the others of 
his companions, that they actually massacred at 
once several of the English soldiery. 

To preserve the rest of the prisoners from 
falling victims to the wild, ungovernable resent- 
ments, Iberville removed them to an island, and 
placed around them a strong guard. 



CAPTURE OF FORT WILLIAM HENRY. 101 

The fortification which had cost Massachu- 
setts so much money to build and garrison 
during four years, was plundered by the 
captors, and then for the most part demol- 
ished. 

The French set sail on the 18th of July for 
Penobscot, where they continued till Septem- 
ber 3, inciting the Indians to a renewal of 
hostilities. 

Threats of a French attack upon Boston 
caused that colony to send a force of five hun- 
dred men, under command of Major March, to 
the eastern frontiers. 

March ranged the eastern coast, and Sept. 9, 
1697, landed his men at Damariscotta. But 
ere they were fully ashore a body of Indians, 
rising unawares from their covert, with the 
usual war-whoop, poured in a full volley upon 
the troops ; but instantly received a repulsive 
charge, which drove them either to the woods 
or to their canoes, leaving their dead behind 
them. Our loss was about twelve or thirteen 
killed, and as many wounded. 



102 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

TREATY OF RYSWICK. 

Then was the peace treaty concluded at 
Ryswick between the French and English, 
Sept. 11, 1697. 

Neither in the war, nor the treaty following, 
was anything effectual done toward determin- 
ing the western limits of Nova Scotia. Provis- 
ion was merely made for the appointment of 
commissioners to settle that question. 

Meanwhile the state of the case sponta- 
neously revived the controversy; France by 
treaty, and Massachusetts by charter, both 
strenuously claiming the Sagadahock province, 
or country between Kennebec and St. Croix. 

The French took possession of the eastern 
fisheries. Governor Villebon wrote Lieutenant- 
Governor Stoughton, Sept. 5, 1698, that "he 
was directed by his royal master to maintain 
his claim to the country as far westward as 
Kennebec River, from its source to its mouth." 

When complaints of encroachment were made 
by the people, the Lords of Trades and Planta- 



TREATY OF BY SWIG K. 103 

tions replied that they should always insist " on 
the English right as far as the River St. Croix," 
and strongly urged the government of Massa- 
chusetts to rebuild the fort at Pemaquid. 

The commissioners from Massachusetts, Colo- 
nel Phillips and Major Converse, taking pas- 
sage from Boston in the Province galley, met 
the Sagamores of Penobscot, Kennebec, Andros- 
coggin, and Saco at Mare Point (now in Bruns- 
wick) ; and on the 7th of January, 1699, was 
signed and ratified the treaty of Aug. 11, 1693, 
with additional articles. 

In this long and bloody war, which lasted 
ten years, four hundred and fifty people were 
either murdered, killed in battle, or died of 
their wounds ; and as many as two hundred 
and fifty were, during the war, carried into 
captivity, some of whom perished of famine, 
hardships, or disease. 

A few, however, who were captured in their 
childhood, becoming attached to the society of 
the savages, chose to remain with them, and 
would never leave the tribes. 



10 1 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

In the short administration of Lord Bella- 
mont, public attention was particularly turned 
toward the Provinces of Maine and Sagadahock. 
By the charter, all timber trees upon the crown 
lands, two feet in diameter, twelve inches from 
the ground, were reserved for the use of the 
royal navy ; and any person felling a tree of 
that size, without license, incurred a penalty of 
one hundred pounds sterling. The first sur- 
veyor-general was John Bridges. 

When Queen Anne ascended the English 
throne she declared war against France, May 4, 
1702, and her ministry persisted in asserting an 
exclusive ownership of the Sagadahock province. 

Her majesty appointed Joseph Dudley gover- 
nor of Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachu- 
setts, with Thomas Povey as lieutenant-governor. 

Dudley urged the General Court to rebuild 
the fort at Pemaquid, but the measure was 
defeated in the house of representatives. 

Falmouth was then the easternmost settle- 
ment revived since the last war. 

As hostilities between the English and French 



QUEEN ANNE'S WAR. 105 

crowns had commenced in Europe, a war with 
the Indians appeared inevitable. In order to 
learn if the eastern Sagamores were inclined to 
rise against the English again, Governor Dud- 
ley had a meeting with a large number at Casco, 
June 20, 1703, when the Indians declared that 
their one great desire was to remain at peace 
with the settlers. 

QUEEN ANNE'S WAR. 

The French, however, succeeded in exciting 
the natives once more against the English ; and 
on the 10th of August, 1703, the Third Indian, 
or Queen Anne's War, was begun by a savage 
attack upon Wells, Cape Porpoise, Saco, Scar- 
borough, Spurwink, Purpooduck, and Casco, 
these being the principal settlements in Maine. 

It is not necessary to set down here the 
events of this war, since the savages did not 
extend east of Falmouth, for the very good 
reason that there were no villages in that 
section to be plundered. 

In the year 1705, according to instructions 



106 THE STOEY OF PE MA QUID. 

from England, Governor Dudley again urged 
the General Court to rebuild the fort at Pema- 
quid. A majority of the members, however, 
believed that Pemaquid was " out of the usual 
road traversed by the Indians ; and being an 
hundred miles distant from any English plan- 
tation, it was merely a place of occasional 
anchorage for coasters or fishing-boats, and 
could be of no great benefit ; neither a bridle 
to the enemy, nor a barrier to our frontier." 

Therefore it was that the fortification re- 
mained in ruins ; and the settlers, having no 
place to which they might flee for safety in 
time of trouble, dared not return to their 
homes nearabout Sagadahock. 

Then came the conquest of Nova Scotia, 
which was of highest importance to the 
Provinces of Maine and Sagadahock, since it 
disposed of the long disputed question as to 
boundary lines. 

In the year 1710, when Colonel Walton had 
returned from Port Royal, and while the In- 
dians were waging war cruelly against the 



QUEEN ANNE'S WAR. 107 

western settlements, he proceeded with a force 
of one hundred and seventy men to recon- 
noiter the eastern shores. 

At Sagadahock Colonel Walton took a 
Sagamore of Norridgewock, his wife, and 
a number of their companions, decoyed or 
drawn to him by the smoke of the soldiers' 
fires. The Sagamore was so surly, and so deaf 
to every inquiry, that the friendly Indians 
were permitted to dispatch him. 

Further east the scout came across three 
Indians, and made them prisoners ; and on 
their return to the Saco, either killed or took 
five more. 

Then came a cessation of hostilities, followed 
b} r the treaty of Utrecht, signed March 30, 
1713; and it appeared very much as if peace 
was as welcome to the savages as to the set- 
tlers. 

July 11, of the same year, the governor 
and twenty councilors from Massachusetts, 
New Hampshire, and Maine, met the sachems 
of the eastern tribes at Portsmouth, where 



108 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

a treaty of peace was signed, and, a few days 
later, ratified at Casco. 

Immediately after the treaty the General 
Court authorized the resettlement, among 
others, of " one town at themouth of Sagada- 
hock, including Arrowsic Island," and the 
owners began occupying their long abandoned 
plantations. 

Mr. Williamson writes : " The eastern prov- 
inces, at the close of Queen Anne's War, 
exhibited a melancholy aspect. More than 
one hundred miles of coast, once interspersed 
and adorned with nourishing settlements, im- 
proved estates, and comfortable habitations, 
lay unpeopled and desolate. Title-deeds, rec- 
ords, and other papers of value, were either 
burnt or lost; and so many years had suc- 
ceeded the wastes of several places, that they 
had resumed the appearance of their original 
solitude. 

" Yet the former inhabitants or their de- 
scendants, appeared ready to engage with cour- 
age and spirit in a resettlement of the country." 



COMMON SCHOOLS. 109 

COMMON SCHOOLS. 

The General Court did not, even amid the 
horrors of war, lose sight of the common-school 
question. The penalties against towns which 
were remiss or negligent in the support of 
schools were increased, and they were rendered 
liable to be indicted by the grand jury in event 
of failing to raise an amount of money for 
school purposes in proportion to the number 
of inhabitants. 

Lotteries were denounced as pernicious; 
singing or dancing at taverns or on the streets, 
after dark, was forbidden. Walking abroad 
on Sunday during the time of public worship, 
or " sporting " during the evening, was a 
grave offense. The publishing or uttering of 
an obscene song, pamphlet, or mock sermon 
was punished by a fine of twenty pounds or 
the pillory, where the culprit would sit with 
the name of his crime placed in capital letters 
over his forehead. 

In 1714 Governor Dudley was succeeded by 



110 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

Colonel Samuel Shute ; and in the same year, 
after the death of Richard Wharton, the Pejep- 
scot purchase was sold to a party of gentlemen 
for one hundred pounds. 

During the following year the General 
Court ordered that a road from Berwick to 
Pejepscot Lower Falls be surveyed, and fifty 
pounds were appropriated towards opening it. 

The new owners of the Pejepscot purchase 
proposed to the General Court that they would 
settle three towns, to be known as Brunswick, 
Topsham, and Harpswell, the latter place to 
include Merryconeag Peninsula, the two 
Sebascodegan Islands and other islands nearby, 
if the government would exempt these towns 
from taxation during five years, and advance 
four hundred pounds towards the erection of a 
" good stone fort " at some place within the 
limits of the settlement. 

The General Court accepted the proposition 
with the understanding that the owners of the 
purchase would support a minister of the 
gospel and a schoolmaster, maintain a sergeant's 



COMMON SCHOOLS. Ill 

guard of fifteen men, and build the fortifica- 
tion. 

The fort was erected on the west side of the 
Androscoggin, opposite the lower falls, and 
called Fort George. 

Williamson writes : " These towns were not 
very speedily settled. In Brunswick, which 
was incorporated the earliest of the three, there 
were, in 1718, no dwelling-places for families, 
except within the walls of the fort, and in the 
block-house near Maquoit Bay. A little before 
that time three families settled in Topsham, 
all of whom were afterward destroyed in Love- 
well's war. The settlement of Harpswell, 
commenced about the year 1720, was for many 
years only a precinct of North Yarmouth. 

" Early in the spring of 1714 several persons 
settled upon lands at the mouth of the river 
Sagadahock. On the margin of Arrowsic 
Island, at Baker's Cove, John Watts of Boston 
built of bricks brought by him from Medford 
in Massachusetts a large dwelling. Another 
was erected about the same time by Mr. Preble, 
at the head of the island. 



112 TEE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

ARROWSIC INCORPORATED. 

" In the spring of 1715 Watts, Preble, and 
twenty-four others, being the whole number on 
the island of Arrowsic, petitioned the General 
Court to be incorporated into a town. 

" It was a frontier, more remote than any 
other place attempted to be resettled, and might 
be a barrier in event of a war, therefore an ob- 
ject of the government's special favor. An 
accession of fifteen families was immediately 
made to the settlement; the governor dis- 
patched from Fort Loyal a sergeant's guard of 
twenty men to be protectors of the inhabitants 
six months; and on June 13, 1716, Parker's 
Island and Arrowsic were made a town by the 
name of Georgetown." 

A celebrated writer says, regarding George- 
town : " This is a place of more celebrity than 
any other, except York and Falmouth, upon the 
eastern coast. It was colonized in 1607 ; 
visited in 1614 by the famous John Smith, 
who sketched a chart of the coast ; and settled 



ARROW SIC INCORPORATED. 113 

between the years 1624-6. At the latter date 
Plymouth colony had a trading-house at the 
site of Popham's Fort, near Spring Point ; and 
the settlement had a gradual increase fifty 
years, until there were on the islands, and both 
sides of the river, more than sixty families. 
The place was ravaged and laid waste by the 
savages in 1676, and in 1688, and from the lat- 
ter year remained desolate till its late revival." 

For the protection of the settlers, and the 
improvement of trade, Doctor Noyes of Boston, 
one of the Plymouth proprietors, built a stone 
fort at Cushnoc, on the bank of the Kennebec 
River near the head of the tide, which is said 
to have been the best fortification in the eastern 
country. 

Mr. Penhallow writes : " So great was this 
encouragement that several towns, as Bruns- 
wick, Tospham, Georgetown, and Cushnoc, 
began to be settled ; a great many fine build- 
ings with saw mills were erected ; husbandry 
began to thrive ; and great stocks of cattle 
were raised." ■ 



114 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

Noyes also invested in the sturgeon fishery, 
which was carried on in the several branches 
of the Sagadahock, and as many as twenty 
vessels were employed. The settlers began to 
send to foreign as well as home ports vast 
quantities of lumber. 

In 1716 the General Court decreed that all 
the lands eastward of Sagadahock, within the 
limits of the Provincial Charter, be annexed to 
" Yorkshire County, and that York be the 
shire town." 

GOVERNOR SHUTE AT ARROWSIC. 

" The settlement of the eastern provinces 
became an interesting topic, and in the spring 
of 1717 the General Court passed an order for 
the repair of the fort and the re-establishment 
of a garrison at Pemaquid." 

The government also promised to pay a 
yearly salary of one hundred and fifty pounds 
to any minister who would reside at Fort 
George, learn the language, and instruct the 
Indians in religion. A young scholar was to 



GOVERNOR SHUTE AT ABEOWSIC. 115 

be associated with the clergyman as school- 
master, and ten pounds appropriated to pay for 
books. 

During the month of August Governor 
Shute held a conference with the Indians at 
Arrowsic, where, after some slight difficulty, 
the treaty of Portsmouth, signed in 1713, was 
confirmed. 

During the summer of 1719 two or three 
persons settled at Damariscotta under the 
" Tappan Right." Within the patent to El- 
bridge and Aids worth, or the " Drown Right," 
the fort at Pemaquid was repaired. At New 
Harbor, William Hilton and John Brown were 
living upon the " Brown Right." 

" At this period there was not a house be- 
tween Georgetown and Annapolis, except a 
fish-house on Damariscove Island, nor were any 
built until the completion of St. George's fort, 
in 1720, where were erected a capacious and 
defensible building, on an elevation near the 
easterly edge of St. George's River, at the 
elbow, and a block-house at a short distance, 



116 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

having a large area between them inclosed by 
palisades, and capable of receiving two hun- 
dred and fifty men. Another fortress, called 
Fort Richmond, was built about this time on 
the west bank of the Kennebec River, opposite 
Swan Island." 

In the year 1720 the Abenaques Indians 
showed signs of enmity, and commissioners 
were sent to all the tribes in Maine with the 
view of preventing them from listening to those 
dissatisfied savages who appeared bent on mis- 
chief. 

No overt act was committed in the Province 
of Maine, however, until about the first of 
August, 1721, when a large number of Indians, 
accompanied by several Frenchmen, visited 
Arrowsic Island, had an interview with Cap- 
tain Penhallow, the commander of the garrison, 
and gave him a letter addressed to Governor 
Shute, purporting to come from all the tribes 
in the province. 

In this letter was the declaration that " if the 
settlers did not remove from out the country 



LOVE WELL'S WAR. 117 

within three weeks, the Indians would come 
and kill them all, destroy their cattle, and burn 
the houses," for, the letter stated, " you Eng- 
lishmen have taken away the lands which the 
Great God has given our fathers and us." 

The people roundabout were warned of the 
danger which menaced ; but as the threats were 
not carried out, in May, 1722, John Smith and 
others petitioned the General Court that the 
township of North Yarmouth be re-established, 
which petition was granted, and the Rev. Mr. 
Cutter was ordained as the first clergyman. 

LOVEWELL'S WAR. 

In this year (1722) the fourth Indian War 
began, which is known as the " Three Years', 
or Lovewell's War." 

It was opened June 13, when a party of 
sixty Indians landed, from twenty canoes, on 
the northern shore of Merry Meeting Bay, and 
took captives nine entire families. 

At about the same time a party of six sav- 



118 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

ages boarded a fishing-vessel in Damariscove 
Harbor, seized and bound the captain and crew, 
and proceeded to beat them cruelly. "At 
length, one getting loose, released the others, 
and they taking weapons, fell suddenly upon 
their assailants, mortally wounding two, and 
throwing one overboard." 

Early in the month of July an attack was 
made upon the fort at St. George's River. 
The Indians destroyed a sloop, took several 
prisoners, and laid siege to the fort, but were 
driven off by the heavy rains. Twenty sav- 
ages and five white men were killed. 

About July 12 a large party of savages de- 
scended upon Fort George and the settlement 
of Brunswick. The village was burned, and 
the enemy withdrew to the banks of the Ken- 
nebec, where they celebrated their success by a 
dance. 

Mr. Williamson writes : " Captain John Har- 
man, then on the Kennebec, hearing of these 
events, took a company of thirty-four men from 
the forces posted on the frontier about and 



LOVE WELL'S WAR. 119 

above Georgetown, and proceeded with them 
up the river. 

" Late in the night they saw fires in the 
woods, apparently not far from the river ; and 
on going ashore they happened to strike on the 
very spot where the Indians had hauled up 
eleven of their canoes. Dazzled by the glare of 
the light, Harman and his men actually stumbled 
over some of the Indians as they lay around 
the fire asleep. 

"In ten minutes the brave pursuers dis- 
patched fifteen of them, and took their guns, 
without the loss of a man." 

While this was being done four or five white 
men were killed in the vicinity of Pemaquid by 
small bands of savages ; and one John Pierce, 
making a report to the General Court, says : " I 
took a vessel and thirty men, and brought my 
father's family away from Muscongus." 

Not until Aug. 8, 1722, did the General 
Court declare war, and then the following prep- 
arations were made : One hundred men were 
stationed at York, thirty at Falmouth, twenty 



120 THE STORY OF P EM A QUID. 

at North Yarmouth, ten at Maquoit, twenty-five 
at Arrowsic, and twenty-five at Richmond fort. 
Four hundred men were appointed to range 
continually " by land or water, through the 
eastern country, especially upon and between 
the rivers Kennebec and Penobscot." A bounty 
of fifteen pounds was offered for every scalp 
taken from " a male Indian twelve years old 
and upward, and eight pounds for every captive 
woman or child." 

Regarding the second destruction of George- 
town, Mr. Williamson writes : " While the gov- 
ernor was planning an expedition under Walton 
to the Penobscot, a large body of four or five 
hundred Indians fell upon Arrowsic (George- 
town), Sept. 10, 1722, early in the morn- 
ing, determined to reduce the garrison and 
destroy the village. Happily the purpose was 
in part frustrated by a discharge of musketry 
from, a small guard which Captain Penhallow 
had ordered out to protect the neighboring 
husbandmen while they gathered their corn. 

" Three of the enemy were wounded and one 



LOVE WELL'S WAR. 121 

killed; and the inhabitants, apprized of their 
danger by the report of the gnns, effected a safe 
retreat, with most of their substance, into the 
garrison. The Indians, then falling upon the 
cattle, killed fifty, and set on fire twenty-six 
houses which were wholly consumed. 

" In a new assault upon the fort they made 
no impression. Our loss was only one man, 
Samuel Brooking, who was shot through a port- 
hole. At night arrived Colonel Walton and 
Captain Harman, with thirty men, who were 
joined by about forty from the garrison, under 
Captains Penhallow and Temple ; and all pro- 
ceeded to encounter the enemy. 

" A smart skirmish ensued, which lasted until 
our forces perceived the danger of being out- 
flanked and overcome by superior numbers ; 
when they retreated to the garrison, and the 
Indians, after dark, retired up the river. 

" On their way they met Captain Stratton 
in the Province sloop, whom they mortally 
wounded ; proceeding to Fort Richmond, they 
offered the garrison a profusion of insult, and 



122 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

then paddled up the river to their headquarters 
at Norridgewock. 

" The burning of the greater part of George- 
town, which had been resettled only six years, 
filled the inhabitants with every discourage- 
ment." 

An expedition of two hundred and thirty 
men, under command of Colonel Thomas West- 
brook, left the Kennebec River, Feb. 11, 172a, 
for the Penobscot River. 

ST. GEORGE'S FORT ATTACKED. 

Penhallow writes : " The last attack of the 
Indians, in 1723, was on Dec. 25, upon the 
fort at St. George's River. Being fortunate 
enough to take two prisoners who gave them 
intelligence concerning the indefensible con- 
dition of the garrison, the assailants, about 
sixty in number, were encouraged to prosecute 
a siege for thirty days, with a resolution, or 
rather madness, that was desperate. They 
seemed to be flushed with the absolute cer- 



ST. GEORGE'S FORT ATTACKED. 123 

tainty of compelling a surrender of the fort. 
But Captain Kennedy, the commanding officer, 
being a man of intrepid courage, held out till 
Colonel Westbrook arrived and put the enemy 
to flight." 

Mr. Sullivan gives the following account: 
" The most memorable of any engagement since 
the war began happened May 1, 1724, at the 
St. George's River. April 30, being an in- 
viting morning, Capt. Josiah Winslow, com- 
mander of the fort, selected sixteen of the 
ablest men belonging to the garrison, and in a 
couple of stanch whale-boats proceeded down 
the river, and thence to the Green Islands in 
Penobscot Bay, which at this season of the 
year were frequented by the Indians for 
fowling. 

" Though Winslow and his companions made 
no discovery, their movements were watched 
by the wary enemy; and on their return the 
next day, as they were ascending the river, 
they fell into a fatal ambush of the Indians 
who were cowering under each of its banks. 



124 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

" They permitted Winslow to pass, and then 
fired into the other boat, which was commanded 
by Harvey, a sergeant, and was nearer the 
shore. Harvey fell. A brisk discharge of 
musketry was returned upon the assailants, 
when Winslow, observing the imminent ' ex- 
posure of his companions, although he was 
himself out of danger, hastened back to their 
assistance. 

" In an instant he found himself surrounded 
by thirty canoes, and threefold that number of 
armed savages, who raised a hideous whoop 
and fell upon the two boat-crews with des- 
perate fury. The skirmish was severe and 
bloody; when Winslow and his men, . perceiv- 
ing inevitable death to be the only alternative, 
resolved to sell their lives at the dearest 
rate. 

" They made a most determined and gallant 
defense ; and after all of them were dead or 
mortally wounded, himself having his thigh 
fractured and being extremely exhausted, his 
shattered bark was set to the shore. 



ST. GEORGE'S FORT ATTACKED. 125 

" Here being waylaid, he fought a savage, 
hand to hand, with the greatest personal cour- 
age, beat off the foe, and then resting on his 
knee, shot one ere they could dispatch him. 
Thus fell the intrepid Winslow, and every one 
of his brave company, except three friendly 
Indians, who were suffered to escape and com- 
municate particulars to the garrison. 

" The Indians next appeared upon Arrowsic, 
and again beset the garrison, still commanded 
by Captain Penhallow. Turning away sud- 
denly, they made three of the inhabitants pris- 
oners, as they were driving cow, x> pasture; 
nor did they leave the island till they had 
killed a great number of cattle." 

Then it was that the savages changed their 
method of warfare. In a few weeks they had 
succeeded in capturing no less than twenty-two 
small fishing-vessels, killing meanwhile twenty 
or more white men while thus outfitting them- 
selves with a fleet, and holding a yet larger 
number prisoners who were forced to aid in 
sailing the boats. 



126 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

A portion of this fleet sailed up the river to 
St. George, determining to destroy the fort. 
They filled two shallops with inflammable mate- 
rial, set the whole on fire, and forced the burn- 
ing craft so near the block-house that but for 
the heroic efforts of the defenders it must have 
been ignited. The enemy then offered favor- 
able terms, provided the garrison would sur- 
render ; but all overtures were indignantly 
rejected, and, unable either to take or destroy 
the fortification, the savages retired without 
doing any great injury. 

In the month of April, 1725, William and 
Matthew Scales were waylaid and killed near 
the fort at North Yarmouth. 

DUMMER'S TREATY. 

During the month of May, 1725, a company 
under command of Capt. Joseph Heath left 
Fort Richmond for a scout across the country 
to the Penobscot River. Arriving there, at 
near the head of the tide, they came upon a 



BUMMER'S TREATY. 127 

deserted village of about fifty Indian houses, 
and these they burned. When the company 
returned to St. George's River, however, they 
learned that the savages had been proposing to 
make peace ; and no report was made of the 
expedition lest government censure should fol- 
low, for there was every reason to believe the 
destruction of the village would retard the long 
desired treaty. 

On the 20th of June, in the same year, that 
was done which does not reflect any credit 
upon the English. A party of Indians bearing 
a flag of truce appeared in front of the garrison 
house at St. George, whereupon the soldiers 
discharged a volley, killing one and wounding 
another. The Indians beat a hasty retreat, 
and thus, probably, was peace yet further de- 
layed. 

One week later the garrison at North Yar- 
mouth was attacked, but without fatal effects, 
and at about the same time two vessels were 
captured in Damariscove Harbor. The ships 
were burned; and the crews, consisting of 



128 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

seven men and a boy, were carried to Sagada- 
hock and barbarously beaten to death. 

Finally, on Dec. 15, 1725, that treaty of 
peace was signed which we know as " Dum- 
mer's Treaty ; " and none other ever made by 
the Indians has been kept so well. 

Believing that the war was really ended, the 
General Court immediately began to establish 
trading-houses at forts Richmond and St. 
George's, and to discharge, on the following 
January, the greater number of the troops 
which had been enlisted. 

" After the war the provincial territory of 
Sagadahock was viewed by speculators as a fit 
section in which to try their skill and gratify 
their cupidity. The region between the rivers 
Kennebec and St. George's presented at this 
time the most allurements. At first the people 
had been without civil government ; next they 
paid some regard to the authority of the Pein- 
aquid proprietors ; in 1664 they were subject 
to the Duke of York; in 1676 most of the 
settlers were formed by Massachusetts into a 



DAVID DUNBAR'S MISRULE. 129 

county by the name of Devonshire ; the 
government of the whole province was resumed 
in 1686 by a governor under James II. ; and 
in 1692 the charter vested the entire juris- 
diction in the provincial government. 

" Not only had this ill-fated people suffered 
all the evils incident to these revolutions, but 
they had experienced a still harder fate from 
the Indians. In the first war the inhabitants 
made a creditable and successful defense ; but 
in the early part of King William's war, many 
were killed and the rest driven away by a mer- 
ciless foe ; their plantations were laid waste, 
and for about thirty years there was not found 
a white man dwelling in this ruined and for- 
saken province. Such is a correct though faint 
portrait of western Sagadahock." 

DAVID DUNBAR'S MISRULE. 

David Dunbae, a native of Ireland, and a 
reduced colonel in the British service, suc- 
ceeded, by what particular art is not known, in 



130 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

getting a royal appointment to " settle, super- 
intend, and govern " the entire province of 
Sagadahock, little more being required of him 
by the ministry than to preserve 300,000 acres 
of the best pine and .oak for the use of the 
crown. 

Mr. Williamson writes regarding him : " On 
his arrival, in the spring of 1729, it was his 
first business to secure the good-will and co- 
operation of Philips, the governor of Nova 
Scotia. He next put the fortification at Pem- 
aquid in tolerable repair, and changed the name 
to Fort Frederick, in compliment to the new 
Prince of Wales. Here he took up his resi- 
dence and began operations. 

" He laid out the territory between the 
rivers Sheespscot and Muscongus into three 
townships, to which he affixed the names of 
three noblemen; viz., Townshend (now Booth- 
bay), Harrington (the southern and greatest 
part of the present Bristol), and Walpole (now 
Nobleborough and the upper part of Bristol). 

'" At Pemaquid Point, near the sea, he laid 



DAVID DUNBAR S MISRULE. 151 

out the plan of a city. The residue of Har- 
rington and Walpole he assigned to a couple of 
speculators, Montgomery and Campbell. Find- 
ing the people who resided northerly of 
Townshend, between Damariscotta and Sheeps- 
cot, backward in submitting to his dictation, 
he threatened to punish their obstinacy by 
expelling them from their possessions. 

" To enforce obedience to his demands, he 
obtained from Annapolis or Canseau thirty 
men and one officer to man the fortress at Fort 
Frederick. Then Dunbar conveyed lands at 
Damariscotta to William Vaughan, and gave 
him the benefit of the river. In September, 
1730, Jonathan Belcher was appointed governor 
of Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine. 

" The people of Sagadahock soon rose against 
the misrule of Dunbar, and sent agents to 
England with complaints against him, praying 
that he might be removed from office ; but 
instead of heeding their prayers, the king ap- 
pointed him lieutenant-governor of New Hamp- 
shire, in addition to his office in Sagadahock. 



132 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

"July 20, 1732, Governor Belcher visited 
the rivers St. George's Saco, and Kenebec^ 
after having had a conference with the Indians 
at Casco ; and he then advised that all the forts 
in Sagadahock be repaired or strengthened. 
Perhaps his visit brought about that which 
the people had in vain been trying to effect, 
for on the 10th day of August, 1732, Dunbar's 
commission was revoked, and the soldiers at 
Fort Frederick sent back to Nova Scotia." 

Fifteen days later the General Court of 
Massachusetts again resumed jurisdiction of 
Sagadahock, and sent from Winter Harbor 
a garrison to man Fort Frederick. 

Governor Belcher made a second excursion 
into the eastern provinces during the summer 
of 1734, concerning which Mr. Sullivan writes : 
"He visited Passamaquoddy, Machias, Pema- 
quid, Damariscotta, and Sheepscot. At Pema- 
quid he had a talk with several Indians whom 
he treated with great courtesy, and from 
whom he received fresh assurances of their 
wishes for a continued peace, although there 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK. 133 

were traders on the frontiers who had given 
some offense. In his interview with the 
inhabitants of these parts they were able to 
confer with mutual satisfaction upon Dunbar's 
recall, for they had all viewed his agency as 
a public annoyance." 

Commerce, trade, and ship-building now 
began to revive in the eastern provinces. The 
articles of export were fur, fish, and lumber. 
About six hundred men were employed in 
the fisheries. The masting-trade was confined 
wholly to Great Britain ; while boards, shingles, 
and also fish were exported to European ports. 

INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK. 

June 24, 1737, the town of Brunswick was 
incorporated. 

Mr. Williamson reviews the history of the 
settlement as follows: "It was originally 
called ' Pegypscot.' Its first inhabitant was 
Thomas Purchas, settled at Stevens' River 
about 1625. He and George Way, in 1632, 



134 THE STORY OF PEMAQUIB. 

took, as it is said, from the Plymouth Coun- 
cil a patent of lands on both sides of the 
Androscoggin, and also a quitclaim of the 
natives. In 1639 Purchas put his plantation 
under the rule of Massachusetts ; from 1636 
to 1638 he was one of William Gorges' Coun- 
cil ; in 1654 he submitted to the New Plym- 
outh government on the Kennebec, and was 
Mr. Prince's sole assistant; and in 1663 and 
1664 he was one of Archdale's justices. Fort 
George was established near the bridge in 
1715, and has been twice greatly injured by 
fire. In 1676 Brunswick was destroyed by 
the savages ; revived after the war, and again 
destroyed in 1690. In 1713 the settlement 
was again resumed ; but in Lovewell's War, 
1722, it was reduced to ashes, and again re- 
peopled in 1727. There were in 1735 between 
thirty and forty men in town." 

So tranquil were the Indians in the begin- 
ning of the year 1737 that the government 
dismantled Fort George at Brunswick, Fort 
Frederick at Pemaquid, and reduced the forces 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK. 135 

at St. George's and Richmond Forts each to 
one commissioned officer and ten men. 

In the autumn of 1737 it was evident that 
the provisions raised were altogether insuffi- 
cient for the support of the inhabitants, and 
before the spring opened the people were 
suffering from a famine. Many had neither 
corn nor grain for several weeks ; in April the 
entire crop of hay was exhausted, and there 
was nothing to spare of any eatable article, 
not even potatoes, it being reported that not 
a peck of them could be bought in all the 
eastern country. There was a distress for 
bread even in Boston, and it would not be 
surprising if many of the destitute upon the 
erstern frontiers perished with hunger. 

Then England declared war against Spain; 
and on June 23, 1740, the General Court 
appropriated money to repair Forts Frederick, 
St. George's, Richmond, and others. 

In August, 1741, Governor Belcher was 
removed from office, and William Shirley 
appointed governor of Massachusetts and 



136 THE STORY OF PUMA QUID. 

Maine. In 1742 Governor Shirley visited the 
eastern settlements, and at St. George's met 
a large number of Indians, to whom he distrib- 
uted gifts. On his return to Massachusetts, 
after he had made a report to the General 
Court, seven hundred pounds were appropri- 
ated to complete the works at Fort Frederick, 
St. George, and Saco. 

In 1743 war appeared imminent between 
Great Britain and France, and Massachusetts 
proceeded to put her entire frontier into 
posture of defense. 

Mr. Sewall says : " As Maine and Sagada- 
hock were most exposed to incursions from the 
savages, in case of a rupture, the legislature 
made an appropriation of about thirteen hun- 
dred pounds to be expended among the eastern 
settlements. The money was applied towards 
constructing stockade forts, building block- 
houses, breastworks, and walls of hewn timber, 
and fortifying the more exposed dwellings." 

Of the amount appropriated, one hundred 
pounds was devoted to each of the following 



INCORPORATION OF BRUNSWICK. 137 

towns : Arrowsic, Sheepscot, St. George's River, 
and one hundred and thirty-four pounds to 
Pemaquid. Fort Richmond was repaired to the 
extent of thirty-four pounds, Damariscotta 
received sixty-seven pounds, and seventy-five 
pounds were to be spent around Broad Bay. 

" Encouraged by this sum, though it was al- 
together inadequate to the expense of these 
works, the inhabitants bestowed upon them a 
great amount of labor, and made them places 
of considerable security. 

" Fort George at Brunswick was again made 
a public garrison. Four hundred men were 
ordered to be enlisted in the county of York, 
and organized as minute-men. Besides a good 
gun and sufficient ammunition, every one was 
to provide himself with a hatchet, an extra pair 
of shoes, or a pair of moccasins, and even a 
pair of snow-shoes." 



138 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

FRANCE DECLARES WAR, MARCH 
15, 1744. 

To make certain as to what the Tarratines 
might do, a delegation from Boston met the 
Sagamores at St. George's Fort during the 
month of July, and received from them fresh 
assurances of peace. 

Oct. 20, 1744, the governor of Massachu- 
setts publicly proclaimed war against the Nova 
Scotia Indians. 

In November of this same year Colonel Pep- 
perell visited St. George's with the hope of 
enlisting Indians in the colonial service ; but 
the Sagamores replied that their young men 
" would not take up arms against the St. Johns' 
tribes." 

There were at this time the following num- 
ber of able-bodied men accredited to the various 
towns : North Yarmouth, 150 ; Brunswick, 50 ; 
Georges and Broad Bay, 270 ; Pemaquid, 50 ; 
Sheepscot, 50. Ten men from Brunswick were, 
during the winter, to scout from Topsham to 



FRANCE DECLARES WAR 139 

Richmond fort ; fourteen from Wiscasset to 
scout as far as Captain Vaughan's block-house 
at Damariscotta ; fourteen from this last-named 
block-house to scout to Broad Bay; fourteen 
from Broad Bay to scout to the block-house at 
St. George's River. 

It may be stated here that many of the 
settlers roundabout St. George's River, who en- 
listed under General Waldo, were at the taking 
of Louisbourg, where they continued with their 
families several years, and some never returned. 

In January of 1745, it seemed positive that 
another Indian war was to be begun; and 
Captain Saunders was sent in the Province 
sloop with gifts to the tribes about the eastern 
harbors, in the hope of holding them true to 
their last treaty. 

In this attempt the government was un- 
successful. 



140 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 



THE FIFTH INDIAN WAR. 

The first outrages of the Indians in this last 
war were committed July 19, 1745, at St, 
George and Damariscotta (Newcastle). The 
fort was attacked unsuccessfully ; a garrisoned 
house, a saw-mill, and several dwellings were 
burned; a large number of cattle were killed, 
and one of the inhabitants was taken prisoner. 

Despairing of reducing Fort St. George, the 
savages made their way toward Fort Frederick. 
When about three hundred yards from the 
fortification they met a woman, whom one 
wounded in the shoulder and another seized. 

The report of the gun, or her shrieks, 
alarmed the garrison ; she succeeded in break- 
ing away from her captor, and escaped into the 
fort. 

The Indians, thus knowing that their purpose 
was discovered, retreated. 

During this same month they killed a man 
and scalped a boy at Topsham, and at New 



THE FIFTH INDIAN WAR. 141 

Meadows shot a mounted man and his horse 
under him. 

At about this time thirty Indians, well armed, 
went to North Yarmouth and secreted them- 
selves under a fence between the two forts, 
which were a mile apart. Philip Greely dis- 
covered their hiding-place, and was killed by 
them, whereupon the savages beat a retreat, 
preferring not to make an attack unless it could 
be in the nature of a surprise. 

They burst into the house of Mr. Maines at 
Flying Point, just before daylight, killed Mr. 
Maines and a young child of his, at the same 
time wounding the mother. A man, lodging 
in the chamber above, shot down one of the 
assailants, and so alarmed the rest that they 
fled, taking with them a young girl, whom they 
afterward carried captive to Canada. 

This murderous deed committed, they formed 
an ambush near the meeting-house at North 
Yarmouth, and succeeded in killing Ebenezer 
Eaton, taking captive his companion. 

A third man escaped, and carried the tidings 



142 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

to the fort, whereupon the Indians fell back to 
a slight elevation of land, and began shooting 
at the houses below, upon which the inhabi- 
tants and several from the fort made such a 
gallant attack that the enemy was forced to 
retreat. 

It should be said here that ten years pre- 
vious forty-five settlers had begun plantations 
upon the banks of St. George's River, and laid 
the foundation of the " Upper Town " (now 
Warren). A settlement had been effected in 
" Lower Town " (now Thomaston), and at 
Meduncook (now Friendship). Block-houses 
were also erected at the " Narrows." 

These settlements more than any others 
appeared to disturb the Tarratines. During 
the autumn of 1745 the Indians killed and 
scalped David Creighton and two companions, 
who had ventured out from the garrison at St. 
George's. Boyce Cooper and Reuben Pitcher, 
who had ventured down to the river for rock- 
weed, were made prisoners, and later carried to 
Canada, 



A SKIRMISH AT ST. GEORGE'S. 143 

Mrs. Thompson and Mrs. Spear, who were 
milking cows not far from the garrison, were 
attacked ; the former made prisoner, and the 
latter escaping into the fort. 

A SKIRMISH AT ST. GEORGE'S. 

Withest two months after the first blow was 
struck every town on the eastern frontier had 
been visited by parties or stragglers from some 
of the savage hoards, thirsting for the settlers' 
blood. In the vicinity of St. George's, Lieuten- 
ant Proctor and nineteen of the militia had a 
skirmish with the enemy Sept. 5, in which were 
killed two of the savage leaders, and one was 
taken prisoner. 

On the following day at Sheepscot, while 
three men were gathering corn, two of them 
were killed and the other wounded by a scout 
of thirteen Indians, firing from an ambush. 

The first mischief done in Maine in the year 
1746 was on the 19th of April at Gorham- 
town, where the Indians killed Bryant and four 



144 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

of his children, taking captive the mother, 
whom they afterwards sold in Canada. They 
also captured Messrs. Cloutman, Read, and 
Thorn. 

Determined to entirely destroy the settle- 
ments in the Sagadahock territory, a large body 
of Indians attacked the German plantation at 
Broad Bay (Waldoboro) on May 21. The 
dwellings were burned, some of the people 
killed, and others carried into captivity. The 
village subsequently lay waste till the close of 
the war. 

The enemy then fell upon the cattle at Pem- 
aquid, and made great havoc among them. 

Five persons at Sheepscot were waylaid by 
fifteen Indians ; but only one was killed by 
the first volley. Another, although mortally 
wounded, faced the savage who was advancing 
to scalp him, and killed him. The other three 
escaped. 

At Wiscasset the enemy killed nineteen 
cattle,, and took Captain Jonathan Williamson 
prisoner. 



ATTACKING THE FORTS. 145 

There was a sharp skirmish between the 
Indians and a company of the English near 
the fort at St. George's, where, after one was 
killed on each side, the enemy withdrew. 

The last attack of the year in the eastern 
provinces occurred Aug. 26, in the vicinity 
of Pemaquid, when the Indians killed John 
McFarland's cattle, destroyed his dwelling and 
crops, and wounded him and his son. 

In April, 1747, the Province sloop was sent 
to patrol the eastern coast. Thirty men were 
assigned to the Garrison at St. George's, and 
three hundred and seventy detailed to scout 
between Berwick and Damariscotta. 



ATTACKING THE FORTS. 

May 26, 1747, a company of a hundred 
Indians made their appearance in the territory 
of Sagadahock, and commenced a furious attack 
upon the fort and people of Pemaquid. This 
was a severe encounter, in which five soldiers 
of the garrison, five recruits from Purpoo- 



146 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

duck, and three citizens of Falmouth were 
killed. 

The savages were beaten back, and while 
retreating made captive a planter at Damaris- 
cotta, and killed his wife and child. 

Early in September a company of sixty ap- 
proached Fort Frederick about daybreak, hop- 
ing to take the garrison by surprise. It so 
chanced that they came upon five soldiers a 
short distance from the pickets ; and three of 
these they killed at the first volley, wounding 
the other two. 

They then assailed the garrison furiously 
during more than two hours, when they with- 
drew without having done further mischief. 

The next effort of the Indians was to besiege 
the fort at St. George's. They attempted to 
open a subterranean passage from the bank of 
the river by undermining the fort on its eastern 
side ; but when they had the work half com- 
pleted the earth fell in, burying several. 
Another attempt was then made a few rods 
distant, with which they proceeded twenty feet 



ATTACKING THE FORTS. 147 

or more, when they retreated without apparent 
cause. 

In May and June, 1748, the Indians killed 
at Brunswick Captain Burnet and his neigh- 
bor; at North Yarmouth Mr. Eaton was shot, 
one man taken prisoner, and several houses 
burned. 

July 2, 1748, news was received that the 
nations at war had agreed on preliminaries of 
peace, and the ravages by the eastern Indians 
had come to an end for the time being. 

Great care was now taken to keep the Indians 
tranquil. Trading-houses were again opened at 
St. George's and Fort Richmond. 

Although Sagadahock had lost many men 
during the war, the province was in a prosper- 
ous condition. Ship-building revived ; and 
many schooners, a class of vessels first known 
thirty-five years before, were used in the fisheries. 



148 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 



AFFRAY AT WISCASSET. 

On Dec. 2, 1749, occurred an affray at Wis- 
casset, which caused much anxiety among the 
inhabitants lest another Indian war should be 
provoked. A violent quarrel ensued between 
several white men and some Indians, in which 
one savage was killed and two others wounded. 
Three white men were taken into custody on a 
charge of murder, but were probably allowed 
to escape within a few weeks. 

Incited most likely by the French, the In- 
dians in Canada took advantage of the occasion 
to offer sympathy for that tribe which had been 
outraged in time of peace, and urged them to 
make reprisals, proceeding with such effect that 
on Sept. 11, 1750, a party of young Indians fell 
with great fury upon the Richmond fort. 

Fortunately the attack was hardly more than 
begun when Captain Samuel Goodwin and a 
small party came up and succeeded in entering 
the fort, whereupon the Indians, probably dis- 



AFFRAY AT WISC ASSET. 149 

heartened because of the unexpected reinforce- 
ments, abandoned the attack, and set about 
committing mischief on both sides of the Ken- 
nebec River. 

At the plantation of Frankfort (now Dres- 
den) they killed a Mr. Pomeroy, wounded one 
McFarland, and captured two men and a young 
child. 

On the same day another party ravaged Swan 
Island, burning dwellings, killing cattle, and 
carrying away fourteen prisoners. 

The same party set on fire several houses in 
Wiscasset and Sheepscot, and took therefrom 
two prisoners. They then proceeded against 
Georgetown, directing their vengeance at the 
garrison on Parker's Island; but were boldly 
and successfully resisted. 

This sudden incursion of the Indians again 
filled the eastern country with fearful distress, 
and the government with great anxiety. Sup- 
plies of ammunition were sent to all the forts 
and the garrisoned houses by orders of the Gen- 
eral Court, and a larger force of men was enlisted. 



150 THE S TOR Y OF P EM A Q UIB. 

On Aug. 3, 1751, commissioners from Massa- 
chusetts met at St. George's Fort, delegates 
from the tribes at Penobscot, Passamaquoddy, 
and St. Johns' rivers, when the Indians formally 
confirmed the treaty signed two years before. 

Jan. 22, 1752, an act of parliament was 
passed which ordained that every year, in- 
cluding the present one, should begin Jan. 1, 
instead of March 25 ; that eleven days be ex- 
punged from the calendar, and the 3d of Sep- 
tember in the present year be called the four- 
teenth. This correction has been termed the 
"New Style." 

In 1753 Merryconeag Peninsula (Harpswell), 
which had been separated from North Yarmouth 
into an independent district, engaged the Rev. 
Elisha Eaton as clergyman. 

INCORPORATION OF NEWCASTLE. 

June 19, 1753, the Sheepscot plantation was 
incorporated by the name of Newcastle, so 
called probably in compliment to the Duke of 



INCOBPOBATION OF NEWCASTLE. 151 

Newcastle, the king's principal secretary and a 
friend to the American colonies. 

Concerning this new town Mr. Williamson 
writes : " The Sheepscot plantation was settled 
about 1630. Walter Phillips, an early settler, 
resided on the western side of the Damariscotta, 
not far from the lower or salt-water falls, 
where the Newcastle village now is. In 1661 
and 1674 he purchased large tracts around him 
from the Sagamores, whence arises the ' Tap- 
pan Right.' 

" John Mason was a contemporary or earlier 
settler on the easterly side of the Sheepscot at 
Great Neck. About the year 1649 Mason also 
purchased from Robinhood and Jack Pudding, 
two Sagamores, a considerable tract about his 
residence. In 1665 the king's commissioners 
sat at his house, when they organized the 
government within the duke's patent, calling 
the plantation Dartmouth, or New Dartmouth, 
and appointed Mr. Phillips recorder. 

" In August, 1676, the inhabitants fled before 
the Indians, but returned after the war. In 



152 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

September, 1688, the settlement was wholly 
destroyed, and lay waste thirty years. The 
plantation was revived and resettled in 1719. 
It is believed the settlement was erected into a 
district in 1751." 

In the month of February, 1754, a company 
of sixty Indians made their appearance near 
Fort Richmond, showing great insolence, and 
uttering threats. 

" Better for the Englishmen," said some of 
them, " to leave these rivers, else our French 
brothers will, as soon as the ice is gone, help 
us drive you all away. Certain they will come 
to us from Canada in the spring, and bring us 
guns and powder." 

This was the first warning of the attempt of 
the French to encroach upon the English set- 
tlements; and the General Court, perceiving 
that another war was inevitable, set about 
strengthening the fortifications and making 
friends with the Indians. 

Governor Shirley himself visited Falmouth 
and its vicinity, and decided to build a fort -at 



INCORPORATION OF NEWCASTLE. 153 

Teconnet Falls, thirty-seven miles above Fort 
Richmond. 

« Encouraged and animated by this enter- 
prise, the proprietors of the Plymouth patent 
built two forts the same season, both on the 
eastern side of the Kennebec River. One was 
situated at the head of sloop navigation, near 
the water's edge, and just below the easterly 
end of the present (Augusta) bridge ; the place 
and the vicinity being anciently called by the 
Indians Cushnoc. 

"The other, called Fort Shirley, was situ- 
ated in the plantation of Frankfort (now Dres- 
den), about a mile above the northerly end of 
Swan Island. The General Court appropriated 
funds for the building of a small fort at the 
second falls in the Androscoggin, and for re- 
pairing Fort George at Brunswick and the 
various block-houses nearby." 



154 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 



THE SIXTH INDIAN WAR. 

Hostilities began in Sagadahock province 
May 13, 1755, when five men who were plow- 
ing near Newcastle were all made prisoners. 

On the 29th Mr. Snow was killed in North 
Yarmouth, and his companions taken captive. 

There were many other murders committed 
nearabout, as at Teconnet, Dresden, and New 
Boston. 

Mr. Sullivan writes : " The settlements 
between the rivers Sagadahock and St. George's 
now deserved and received great attention. At 
Muscongus and Meduncook there were forts, 
and at Pleasant Point, near the mouth of St. 
George's River, at the Narrows above the gar- 
rison, and indeed in every neighborhood there 
were block-houses, all of which were put in the 
best posture of defense, and were made the 
common receptacles of the settlers' families and 
effects." 

In July, 1755, a melancholy affair occurred 



TEE SIXTE INDIAN WAR. 155 

which filled all good men with grief, and 
greatly embarrassed the government. Captain 
James Cargil] of Newcastle, with a commission 
for raising a scouting company, enlisted several 
men about the St. George's River, and led the 
whole on an excursion towards Penobscot Bay. 
Near Thomaston they killed twelve Indians, not 
knowing whether they were friends or foes, 
and on their return murdered a friendly squaw 
and her infant. 

Cargill was arrested on a charge of murder, 
and sent to Boston, but released at the expira- 
tion of two years without having had a trial. 

War against the Penobscot Indians was 
declared Nov. 5, 1755. 

" The settlements which the Indians seemed 
to have marked first for destruction, in the 
spring of 1756, were those upon the river St. 
George's. Benjamin Burton's house, near the 
mouth of the river, was attacked March 24, 
when the enemy killed two men and scalped 
a third, leaving him half dead. 

The next news was the story of a young 



156 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

man by the name of Knights, who, having 
escaped from the enemy three days after he 
was taken, came into North Yarmouth, and 
told that a hundred and twenty Indians, 
divided into small parties, were preparing to 
fall upon the frontier at different places. 

" Three companies of men were sent out to 
intercept the foe, but did not succeed in dis- 
covering him." 

The savages next appeared at North Yar- 
mouth, and at Flying Point killed a man, and 
took captive a woman. 

On May 3 three men, well armed, went 
from Harpswell to Brunswick; and on their 
return in the afternoon, three Indians rose up 
from among the bushes at a place called 
Smith's Brook, and, firing, wounded one, 
whereupon the other two took to their heels. 
The captain was carried to Canada. 

At the head of Arrowsic Island (in George- 
town), a party of savages killed Mr. Preble and 
his wife while they were planting corn, and 
carried into captivity their three children. The 



A SKIRMISH AT TOP SHAM. 157 

fort on the island was attacked ; but the enemy- 
failed to do other damage than the wholesale 
slaughter of cattle. 

A schooner was captured at St. George's, 
and burned; two others were captured and 
carried away. Three men were killed, and 
three made captives. 

A SKIRMISH AT TOPSHAM. 

Captain Lithgow and a party of eight 
men were fired upon from ambush, when near 
the fort at Topsham, May 18, 175T. Two 
were wounded at the first volley ; but the 
remainder fought desperately, killing two of 
the enemy, and driving away the others. 

April 4, 1757, Thomas Pownall succeeded 
Shirley as governor of Massachusetts and 
Maine. 

Jan. 25, 1758, the Merryconeag peninsula, 
Sebascodegan, and as many as twenty other 
islands, were incorporated as a town under the 
name of Harps well. 



lo8 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

During this year but few depredations were 
committed in Maine by the Indians. In May 
a man by the name of Pomeroy was killed at 
Kennebec, and a child taken captive. In June 
an inhabitant of Arrowsic Island and his wife 
were slain, and their six children and a young 
woman were carried into captivity. 

Fort Frederick at Pemaquid was dismantled, 
it having become apparent that the Indians 
were tired of warfare. 

Oct. 20, 1759, the plantation of Nequasset, 
or Nauseag, was incorporated under the name 
of Woolwich. 

Mr. Sullivan writes regarding this town : 
"ft is worthy of remark that Sir William 
Phips, the first royal governor of the Massa- 
chusetts province, was a native of this place ; 
born in the southeast part of the present town, 
on a peninsula projecting into Monsweag Bay. 
The titles of the inhabitants to their land are 
either by actual settlement under the grantees 
of Robinhood's deed, or by deeds from Thomas 
Clark and Sir Biby Lake, who was assignee of 
Roger Spencer. 




THE SEAL OF PEMAQUID. 




& *& 



SIGNATURE OF MOWHOTIWORMET, 
OR ROBINHOOD. 



A SKIRMISH AT TOPSHA M. 159 

April 29, 1760, the Tarratines signed a 
'treaty of peace at Boston. 

Aug. 4, 1760, Sir Francis Bernard succeeded 
Pownal as governor of Massachusetts and 
Maine. 

Feb. 10, 1763, was signed the treaty of 
Paris, when France renounced to Great Britain 
all of Canada, and all other northern domin- 
ions in America. 

The following towns were incorporated in 
1767: Topsham, Jan. 31; Gorham, Oct. 30; 
and Boothbay, Nov. 3. 

Mr. McLellan, writing in the year 1827 of 
Gorham, says : " There were in the plantation 
only ten families in 1746, and reduced at one 
time to four. The usual number of persons 
during the Fifth Indian War was about sixty 
men, women, and children, besides ten soldiers. 
For seven years they were mostly confined to 
a small fort. In 1750 they were visited with 
a fever so severe that scarcely one man was 
able to stand sentry. Men had their guns 
beside them in the field; and when they 



160 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

traveled it was by night through fear of an 
ambush." 

Gorham was so named out of respect to 
Captain John Gorham; the first settler was 
Captain John Phinney. 

INCORPORATION OF TOPSHAM. 

" The territory of Topsham is a part of the 
1 Pejepscot purchase,' " so Mr. Williamson 
writes. " There were at an early period, prob- 
ably soon after Queen Anne's War, three 
families settled in Topsham, — one at Fulton's 
Point, one at Pleasant Point, and one at the 
head of Muddy River. They lived on good 
terms with the Indians until there was a gen- 
eral rupture. Giles, the one settled at Pleas- 
ant Point, and his neighbor at Muddy River, 
were with their families destroyed. The other 
settler returned to Europe. The settlement 
was renewed in 1730 by the Scotch and Irish 
emigrants, and in 1750 there were in the place 
eighteen families." 



INCORPORATION OF TOPS HAM. 161 

Regarding Boothbay, Mr. Sullivan says : " It 
is the ancient Cape Newagen settlement, situ- 
ated between the Damariscotta and Sheepscot. 
It is supposed to have been settled about 1630, 
a few years after there were inhabitants at 
Peniaquid. A part or all of the peninsula was 
purchased in 1656 of the famous Sagamore, 
Robinhood, by one Henry Curtis ; and in 1674, 
when the county of Devonshire was established, 
this was one of the principal plantations. It 
was wholly overrun by the savages in the Second 
Indian War, about 1688, and subsequently lay 
waste forty years. On its revival under 
Colonel Dunbar, in 1729, he gave it the name 
of Townshend." 

Bristol was incorporated June 18, 1765, and 
embraces the ancient Pemaquid, which, as Mr. 
Williamson writes, " is more noted in our early 
history than any other plantation in the State. 
A settlement was commenced on the river of 
that name near its mouth in 1626 ; the patent 
to Elbridge and Aldsworth is dated Feb. 20, 
1631 ; and May 27, 1633, according to Shurte's 



162 THE STORY OF PEMAQUID. 

testimony, possession was given * from the 
head of the river Damariscotta to the head 
of the river Muscongus, and between them 
to the sea.' 

" On the eastern bank of the river was the 
seat of government under the patentees, and 
the site of Fort William Henry, built of stone 
by Sir William Phips in 1692, prior to which 
time the settlement had been laid waste by the 
savages. But under the guns of the fortress, 
there was a determinate purpose to promote 
the habitancy of such as chose to dwell there 
till the garrison, in 1696, was taken by the 
French. 

" The country lay unpeopled afterwards more 
than twenty years. A resettlement was at- 
tempted about 1717, which was one of the first 
effected in this eastern country after Queen 
Anne's War. Dunbar, in 1729 and 1730, re- 
paired the fortification, calling it Fort Frederick, 
and gave to the place the name of Harrington." 

April 26, 1771, four towns on the Kennebec 
River were incorporated under the name of 



INCORPORATION OF TOPSHAM. 163 

Hallowell, Vassalborough, Winslow, and Win- 
throp. " The first was named for the Hallowell 
family, who were among the Plymouth pro- 
prietors; the second probably for William 
Vassal, one of the first colony assistants of 
Massachusetts; the third for General John 
Winslow, who had command of the expedition 
employed in the erection of Fort Halifax ; and 
the fourth for a family ' more eminent for their 
talents, learning, and honors, than any other in 
New England.' " 

" In Hallowell, which, when first incorporated, 
embraced the present Augusta, a settlement was 
resumed at the latter place (then Cushnoc) 
in the vicinity of the fort or block-house, 
shortly after the establishment of that fortifica- 
tion in 1754 ; and some years later, at the 
' Hook,' where the village of Hallowell is now 
situated. Here had been inhabitants, or resi- 
dent traders, at least one hundred and twenty 
years before the present incorporation. But the 
place was depopulated in the First Indian War, 
resumed before the Second, and again, after the 



164 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

peace of 1713, though the inhabitants were 
unable to defend themselves against the bold 
tribe of Indians seated at Norridgewock." 



INCORPORATION OF WALDO- 
BOROUGH. 

June 29, 1773, was incorporated the town of 
Waldoborough, previously a plantation known 
by the name of Broad Bay, which had been 
inhabited by Germans as early as the year 1740. 
In the Spanish and Indian War which followed 
they were all driven away or destroyed. In 
1748 the settlement was revived. 

"In 1752 Samuel Waldo, son of the gen- 
eral, visited Germany and issued proclamations 
promising every man who would emigrate and 
settle upon the Waldo patent one hundred acres 
of land. About fifteen hundred people re- 
moved from Germany to Broad Bay, a large 
part of whom settled at Broad Cove, on the 
westerly side of the Muscongus River. In 
1763 the claimants of the Drowne and Brown 



INCOBPOBATION OF WALDOBOBOUGH. 165 

patents began suits against the owners of the 
Waldo patent ; and the Germans, disappointed 
in their expectations, decided to rid themselves 
of the possibility of a lawsuit. Three hundred 
families removed to lands in the south-western 
part of Carolina, leaving behind only about 
eighty families." 

The towns of Edgecomb and New Gloucester 
were incorporated in 1773, March 5 and 8 
respectively. 

May 13, 1774, General Thomas Gage was 
appointed to succeed Hutchinson as governor 
of Massachusetts and Maine. 

In a county convention held at Falmouth, 
Sept. 21, 1774, were delegates from Falmouth, 
Scarborough, North Yarmouth, Gorham, Cape 
Elizabeth, Brunswick, Harpswell, Windham, 
and New Gloucester, when it was declared as 
the wish of the people in Maine that the colonies 
declare themselves free and independent. 

On May 9, 1775, occurred that which resulted 
in the destruction of Falmouth, and in which a 
resident of Brunswick was deeply concerned. 



166 THE STORY OF PEMAQU1D. 

Mr. Williamson thus states the case : 

a Among the zealous Whigs of these times 
was Samuel Thompson, of Brunswick or Tops- 
ham, a lieutenant-colonel of the militia, and a 
member of the Provincial Congress. He pos- 
sessed a kind of boldness and courage which 
was specious, and he was not a suitable man to 
be entrusted with a difficult enterprise. 

" Being informed that one of the king's ships 
lay in Falmouth Harbor, and that the com- 
mander, Captain Mowatt, was often ashore, he 
conceived the design of making him a prisoner. 
For this purpose he and a company of fifty or 
sixty volunteers, landing at Sandy Point, on the 
eastern part of Falmouth peninsula, May 9, 
secreted themselves from view in a neighboring 
thicket. 

" To prevent a discovery, unknown as his 
plan and situation were to the town's people, 
he detained such of them as happened to pass 
near him, till Captain Mowatt, his surgeon, 
and Rev. Mr. Wis well, regaling themselves 
with a walk that day after dinner, fell into 



INCORPORATION OF WALBOBOROUGR. 16"< 

the ambush, and all three were taken in 
custody. 

" Hogg, the sailing-master of the Canseau, 
Mo watt's ship, hearing the news, immediately no- 
tified the townspeople that if Captain Mowatt 
and his companions were not set at liberty 
within two hours he would lay the town in ashes. 

" The people were at once plunged into the 
greatest consternation. Thompson's act was 
generally considered rash, and the Tories of 
Falmouth believed the prisoners ought to be 
rescued by the militia. The chief men of the 
town expostulated with Thompson, urging him 
to set Mowatt at liberty rather than cause the 
distraction of the place, but he refused. 

" He said there was open war between Great 
Britain and the Colonies, and the prisoners, 
whom Providence had put within his power, 
ought not be discharged. Finally, however, 
about two hours after dark, he consented to 
the release ; and the English captain went on 
board his ship, only to return later, as is well 
known, and destroy the town." 



168 THE STORY OF PEMAQU1D. 

(This affair is described at length in the 
" Story of Old Falmouth," the first in the 
series of " Pioneer Towns.") 



INCIDENTS OF THE REVOLUTION. 

During the autumn of 1775 a picaroon boat, 
commanded by one Hammon, visited an island 
of Harpswell inhabited by a single family, 
whom he and a crew of seven men robbed dur- 
ing the night, then taking up their quarters in 
the house until daylight. 

Hearing of the affair, Nehemiah Curtis, com- 
mander of the militia in the western part of the 
town, gathered a party, and before morning 
captured the robbers and their boat. They 
were confined in the county jail at Falmouth. 

Hammon's plausible story soon secured his 
release, whereupon, in a larger vessel and with 
a larger crew, he went at once to the same 
island. Here Curtis, with a company of vol- 
unteers, once more engaged the robbers. In the 
sharp skirmish which ensued, one of the 



INCIDENTS OF THE REVOLUTION. 169 

plunderers was mortally wounded, and the re- 
mainder of the party beat a hasty retreat. 

Following are the names of certain gentle- 
men who were members of the Provincial Con- 
gress from October, 1774, until July 19, 1775 : 

From Brunswick and Harpswell : Samuel Thomp- 



son. 



From Gorham : Bryant Morton and Solomon Lom- 
bard. 

From North Yarmouth: John Lewis and David 

Mitchell. 

From Georgetown : Samuel McCobb. 

From Topsham : John Merrill and Samuel Fulton. 

From Bowdoinham : Samuel Harnden. 

Samuel McCobb accompained Arnold on his 
march to Quebec, as captain ; he was afterward 
commissioned brigadier-general. 

During the month of October, 1775, Arnold's 
expedition, intended for the capture of Quebec, 
passed up the Kennebec River, and one division 
halted sufficiently long to build a small block- 
house. 

During the May session of the General Court 
in 1766, it was ordered that all public docu- 



170 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

ments should be drawn in the name of the 
" Government and People of Massachusetts 
Bay in New England," without any mention of 
the British sovereign. 

Early in the year 1777, fifty men were 
stationed at Boothbay, " for the defense of the 
port;" and the Board of War provided them 
with one 12-pounder gun, two 9's, and two 6's 
on carriages, together with fifty rounds of cart- 
ridges for each gun, and apparatus complete. 

March 20, 1777, Thomaston, so named in 
honor of Major-General John Thomas, was in- 
corporated. Mr. Williamson writes : " The fort 
in this township rendered the place more noted 
than any other on the River St. George. It 
was the heart of the Waldo patent. Several 
men emigrated hither for the purpose of trade 
and business within a few years after the 
Plymouth Council made the grant, but no per- 
manent settlement was effected. 

" A new fortification was erected in 1719, 
which was rebuilt and enlarged before the 
Spanish and Fifth Indian War, though at no 



DISTRICT OF MAINE. 171 

time abandoned from its first establishment till 
the close of the Revolution. In 1750-52 the 
fort was so crowded with people that fifteen or 
twenty families, at their own expense, built two 
rows of block-houses, one hundred rods distant 
from it on the westerly side, which they sur- 
rounded with a picket of perpendicular posts 
ten feet in height. 

"Upon Mill River, which issues from Tol- 
man's Pond, partly in Camden, and empties 
into the main river at the elbow or bend, 
Mason Wheaton commenced a settlement in 
1763 ; and three years later Messrs. Snow, 
Coombs, and their associates, settled at West- 
keag River, in the southeasterly section of the 
township, at the head of the creek." 

DISTRICT OF MAINE. 

In the year 1778 Congress divided the State 
of Massachusetts into three districts, the north- 
ernmost of which was given the distinctive 
name of "the district of Maine." 



172 THE STORY OF PUMA QUID. 

So much was a map of Maine, especially a 
correct one of the eastern coast, wanted at this 
time, that the government granted to Mr. Shep- 
pard for a " chart " of the same, an entire town- 
ship of land. 

The first town established by the new State 
government was Bath, incorporated Feb. 17, 
1781. 

In Mr. Williamson's history the following is 
found relative to the early settlement of this 
town : " Thomas Stevens, at some time between 
1667 and 1670, purchased of Elderunkin and 
Devele Robin Nenement, two Sagamores, all 
their rights to a large tract of land which in- 
cluded this township. 

" But it is believed that the first settlement 
was undertaken on the banks of ' Long Reach,' 
above the 'Elbow,' before 1670, by Rev. Mr. 
Gutch. This belief would seem to be well 
founded, as shown in the records of that suit- 
at-law brought by Doctor Gardner against 
Colonel Nathaniel Donnel, who claimed owner- 
ship through deeds executed by Parson Gutch. 



DISTRICT OF MAINE. 173 

" Gardner gained the suit ; and probably from 
the time of that decision the settlement, which 
had lain waste from the First or Second Indian 
War, was gradually revived. There was also 
another settlement on Stevens' or New Mead- 
ows River, which was till 17 TO probably the 
most populous neighborhood." 

It was on Feb. 18, 1781, that General Wads- 
worth, then living at Westkeag in Thomaston, 
was taken prisoner by twenty-five English 
Soldiers under Lieutenant Stockton. 

"Never, even in the savage wars, had this 
eastern country been infested with any worse 
than their present enemies. They were vile 
mercenaries, revengeful Tories, and freebooters, 
whose business it was to deal in blood, treach- 
ery, and plunder. 

" The General Court employed two sloops, 
a galley, and a flotilla of whale-boats to 
guard the eastern coast; and, since General 
Wadsworth had been made a prisoner, the 
command of the eastern department was com- 
mitted to Samuel McCobb, of Georgetown, 



174 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

who was promoted about this time to be 
brigadier-general. " 

Fortunately the Indians, such bitter enemies 
in former wars, were now active friends ; some 
of the Tarratines even maintaining armed bodies 
for the defense of the colonies at their own 
expense. 

At this time, according to Mr. Bradford, the 
credit of the State was so weakened that one 
silver dollar would purchase from thirty-five 
to forty dollars in bills. 

INDEPENDENCE OF THE UNITED 
STATES. 

When the provisional articles of peace were 
signed by Great Britain, acknowledging the 
independence of the United States in its fullest 
extent, the people of Maine believed, with good 
cause, that their homes were made secure to 
them, and even under all their burdens and pri- 
vations the settlers rejoiced. 

To encourage soldiers and emigrants desirous 



INDEPENDENCE OF UNITED 8TATES. 175 

of settling upon lands in Maine, the government 
offered every newcomer, at one dollar per acre, 
his choice of one hundred and fifty acres any- 
where upon the rivers and navigable waters, 
or to give him one hundred acres elsewhere if 
he would but clear sixteen acres in four years. 

Shortly after the colonies had gained their 
independence the people of Maine began to 
discuss the question of a separation from Mas- 
sachusetts. A convention was held at Fal- 
mouth Sept. 5, 1785, and the general sentiment 
appeared to be that a new State should be 
formed. 

A second convention assembled Sept. 6, 
1786 ; and a year later the people presented 
a petition to the General Court, asking that 
Maine be made a State; but nothing definite 
was accomplished. 

June 24, 1794, a charter was granted by the 
General Court for the establishment of Bow- 
doin College in the town of Brunswick. It 
was the first classical seminary founded in 
Maine, 



176 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

Feb. 20, 1796, the town of Augusta was 
incorporated. Concerning it Mr. Williamson 
writes : " Augusta is the ancient * Cushnoc,' a 
very noted place upon the Kennebec. Soon 
after the patent upon that river was granted 
to the Plymouth Colony, in 1629, the pa- 
tentees, it appears, made settlements, and 
erected a trading-house near the head of the 
tide. 

"In their institution of government, 1653, 
within the patent, under a commissioner, Mr. 
Thomas Prince, the people residing at Cush- 
noc were included therein and took the oath of 
fidelity. The settlement was laid waste in the 
Second Indian War, and resumed with partial 
success after the peace of 1713, when Dr. 
Noyes built a stone fort at Cushnoc. But the 
place was again depopulated, and remained 
without inhabitants until Fort Western was 
built there, in 1754, by the Plymouth proprie- 
tors. Soon after the French War closed, a 
resettlement was permanently effected and 
gradually increased, yet it is said that there 



INCORPORATION OF GARDINER. 177 

were in 1770 only three families in what is 
now the city of Augusta." 

Penhallow states that " Dr. Noyes built the 
garrison at his own charge, which was judged 
to be the best in the eastern country. It was 
for a while kept at the public cost, but after- 
wards slighted, which occasioned the inhabi- 
tants to withdraw, and then the Indians burned 
it, together with several other houses." 

June 15, 1799, the " Lincoln and Kennebec 
Bank," at Wiscasset, was incorporated. 

INCORPORATION OF GARDINER. 

February 7, 1803, the town of St. George 
was incorporated, and on the 17th of the same 
month Gardiner was established. The planta- 
tion name of Gardiner was " Cobbesse," and 
the town was taken from that part of Pittston 
which lies on the west side of the Kennebec 
River. Between 1755 and 1761 the Plymouth 
Company granted to Dr. Sylvester Gardiner the 
greater portion of the township; and in 1760 



178 THE STORY OF PE MA QUID. 

he erected a mill on the river Cobbesseconte, 
where he began a settlement. He died in 
1736. 

June 18, 1812, war was declared as existing 
between Great Britain and the United States. 

Fortunately for the people residing within 
what has been known as the Sagadahoc terri- 
tory, while the clash of arms was heard on 
either side, they remained comparatively undis- 
turbed. There are but few incidents connected 
with this war which it is necessary to relate in 
order to continue the story as begun. 

In July or August two armed ships anchored 
at the mouth of St. George's River, and landed 
a considerable body of men in two barges dur- 
ing the night, who marched to the fort below 
Thomaston. They met with no opposition 
while spiking the guns of the fortification, 
destroying the munitions of war and buildings, 
setting fire to one vessel, and towing away two 
others. 

" It is said that the barges ventured within a 
mile of Knox's wharf, near the old fort, and 



INCORPORATION OF GARDINER. 179 

were only hastened back by the appearance of 
daylight." 

In September of the same year, after the 
British took possession of the Penobscot River, 
it was feared that the Kennebec might be 
visited. Major-General King of Bath issued 
orders for his entire division to rendezvous at 
Wiscasset, a portion of General Sewall's divis- 
ion was sent to the same place. Several fami- 
lies left town with their household effects, and 
the specie was removed from the vaults of the 
Bath and Wiscasset banks. Fortunately, how- 
ever, the enemy remained at a satisfactory 
distance. 

On the 10th and 11th of September several 
vessels were seen off Pemaquid, but did not 
attempt to effect a landing. The militia re- 
mained under arms, and Wiscasset was an 
encampment until it was known that the 
greater portion of the British fleet had pro- 
ceeded eastward from Castine. 

Then came the news of peace as declared by 
the treaty signed at Ghent, Dec. 24, 1815. 



180 THE STORY OF PEMAQU1D. 

" Commerce being now free of restrictions 
and embarrassments, all vessels were in great 
demand, and the business of ship-building and 
of lumbering revived throughout Maine." 

MAINE BECOMES A STATE. 

In Jantjaey, 1820, Governor Brooks said in 
his message to the General Court : " The con- 
nection between Massachusetts and Maine has 
been maintained to mutual satisfaction and 
advantage. But the time of separation is at 
hand. Conformable to the Act of June 19th 
last, the 15th of March next will terminate for- 
ever the political unity of Massachusetts proper 
and the District of Maine, and that District, 
which is bone of our bone and flesh of our 
flesh, will assume her rank as an independent 
State in the American Confederacy." 

Having thus briefly traced, from the coming 
of the first white men, the history of that dis- 
trict which had for many years as its capital 
town the settlement at Pemaquid, together 



MAINE BEC0ME8 A STATE. 181 

with all its various patents, rights, and claims, 
this story naturally comes to an end after the 
admission into the Union of Maine as a State ; 
for now were the old boundaries obliterated by 
new ones, as were the names of the first planta- 
tions wiped out by the flourishing towns and 
cities which cover that territory where our 
forefathers struggled in our behalf for a foot- 
hold. 

THE END. 



^b.-2T,«° a - 



FEB 27 1902 



1 COPY DEL. TO CAT, OIV. 
FEB. 27 1902 



